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Jewish World Review
May 1, 2013/ 21 Iyar, 5773
Letting planes fly on time
By
Jay Ambrose
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Airline passengers, Republicans, common sense and the American future got a break the other day when congressional Democrats said, oh, well, OK, we'll vote for a GOP-constructed bill to let airplanes start taking off on time again. They thus helped buck a political ploy backfiring badly on the White House.
It's a fascinating story in which a little means a lot. That's because it's about far more than departure delays, as important as those can be in some situations. It's about politicians, chiefly liberal Democrats, seeking victory for their ideas and constituencies through means that entail damage to the innocent and of there now being a chance of moving past some of that.
To get there, go back to 2011 when House Republicans insisted they weren't going to raise the debt ceiling unless steps were taken to address deficits threatening disaster. A failure to raise it portended debt default, itself a disaster, and Republican cooperation was then purchased with a White House proposal. It called for an across-the-board, indiscriminate budget reduction that would go into effect in March 2013 if no other deal was made before then.
The betting by both sides was that the other side would hate at least something in those cuts -- defense spending if you were a Republican, spending on social programs if you were a Democrat -- and that compromises would eventuate. They didn't, mostly because President Barack Obama wanted outsized tax increases along with minimal reductions in the amounts by which spending would keep on growing.
While not blameless in negotiations, the Republicans were at least ready to start making some cuts of the kind that are ultimately inescapable if American greatness is not to face extinction. Some even understood the need for genuine, revenue-increasing tax reform. The Democrats would not back up, however, and the White House then indulged in a hullabaloo about how the country would be wrecked when sequestration -- the same idea it itself devised -- went into effect.
The direness was hooey, though, to be sure, the sequestration was inane -- budget decisions made with no effort to evaluate what matters and what does not. And hurt has been felt, such as in some Head Start programs having to cut back.
You probably heard, too, about the end of White House tours because the Secret Service can no longer afford to provide security. That's a charade. As any number of commentators noted, that money could have been saved by the president giving up just one of his multiple vacations, and the White House easily could have worked out an understanding with Secret Service on that.
Then we got the Federal Aviation Administration's furlough for air traffic controllers. That was phony, too. The FAA could have met its cutback requirements with moves having no impact on airplanes coming and going. Here was a maneuver intended to cause outrage directed at Republicans for not going along with higher taxes. When the Republicans offered to redirect the FAA cuts through a new law, though, the Democrats had to choose between having public outrage now being directed at them or voting in favor of it.
Guess what happened? The Republicans won one.
Some liberals are saying what this really shows is how the government is responsive to the rich and not to the poor. That's wrong. For one thing, there is nothing wrong with helping Joe even if you did not help John. For another, the government is forever responsive to a middle class that exercises major control in politics because it is a crucial source of social cohesion and a primary force come Election Day. And middle class folks who aren't the least bit rich fly on airplanes.
The good thing here is that, instead of sticking with their taxes-or-no-deals policy, the Democrats may now go along with other fixes of sequestration stupidities as the Republicans, too, give ground on some cuts when others would be better.
The grander possibility -- though nothing more than a possibility -- is that this administration overreach may have brought us closer to some renewed and more serious negotiations on long-term debt. We will see.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado.
Previously:
04/24/13: How about having a poetry century?
03/28/13: TV news can give you the blues
03/20/13: We're upside down and debt crash is coming
03/13/13: Stock market is downright perky. Blame the corporations
03/06/13: Bloomberg rivals Carrie Nation
02/27/13: The Wily One is proving in polls that it's no toughie to fool lots of people most of the time
02/20/13: On Obama, swans, goulash and invisibility
02/13/13: Drones and hypocrisy
01/30/13: The Nixonian Obama
01/23/13: Is Obama making JFK-style mistakes?
01/02/13: Kerry nomination emblematic of woes coming
12/26/12: Hollywood beats Harvard in history?
12/12/12: Immigration issues solve themselves
12/06/12: Durbin's deficiency
11/29/12: Man of the century
11/21/12: A big scandal coming?
11/14/12: U.S. should follow the Swedish path
11/07/12: Hanging from a poll
• 10/31/12: A dream that wouldn't come true
• 10/29/12: When the 'kooks' and 'racists' turn out to be your ideological allies
• 10/24/12: The pettiness refuge
• 10/18/12: An interruption that tells a bigger tale
• 10/17/12: A recovery that wasn't
• 10/12/12: Big Bird squabble points to something real
• 10/11/12: The 'war' you don't hear about --- the one on average Americans
• 08/22/12: Obama leadership: Romney's returns trump road to recovery
• 08/15/12: Saving Medicare the Ryan way
• 08/01/12: Combatting free speech
• 07/25/12: Good and bad reactions to Colorado horror
• 07/18/12: Apology time for Obama
• 07/16/12: Free markets solve climate change threats
• 07/11/12: Humans and particles and those who would order them
• 07/06/12: Why we'll miss Andy Griffith
• 07/05/12: All will feel Affordable Care Act's bite
• 07/02/12: A social solution --- homes with dads
• 06/27/12: Being a 'nation of immigrants' is not an excuse
• 06/20/12: Barack Obama the autocrat
• 06/18/12: Bradbury's lessons for today
• 06/13/12: Should this leaking administration sink?
• 06/11/12: Simpson bashes back on reform
• 06/05/12: Legalize sugary drinks, ban dangerous drugs
• 06/04/12: Keep America from going Greek
• 06/01/12: Don't believe in Obama's fairy tales
• 05/30/12: Writing a book? Beats prison
• 05/23/12: Student loans fail students
• 05/21/12: Europeanizing America into crisis
• 05/16/12: Obama a bully, too
• 05/15/12: Walker recall vote could swing national pension policy
• 05/07/12: Bumbling, fumbling, benighted, old Washington near tipping point where freedom is done for
• 05/02/12: The Communists cannot be happy
• 04/30/12: There's no objective truth, least of all concerning behavior
• 04/25/12: Forgive the extremist?
• 04/23/12: Educational excellence is a game
• 04/18/12: Obama's interventions help a few by the most autocratic, complicated, ineffective means possible, yet hurt many more
• 04/16/12: Overregulation strikes again: The nanny state threatens to turn us into children
• 04/11/12: Obama is not bonkers
• 04/04/12: Will America vote against authoritarianism?
• 04/02/12: 'Tipping point' on federal restraint approaches
• 03/28/12: Obama truth from an open mike
• 03/21/12: The progressive campaign for voter fraud
• 03/19/12: Public pensions will get us if we don't watch out
• 03/14/12: Politics needs reporting, not speculation
• 03/12/12: Home of the free, the brave, the endangered
• 03/07/12: Obama used Limbaugh as scapegoat
• 03/05/12: Campaign substance lost in media melodrama
• 03/01/12: When Big Brother drowns
• 02/24/12: Obama goes gaseous on gas
• 02/22/12: Political tears for trust in personal empowerment --- except in the bedroom
• 02/17/12: Of cut-off ears and silenced mouths
• 02/15/12: Obama is a joke whose antics aren't funny
• 02/10/12: An energy boom looms, despite Obama
• 02/08/12: Obama's assault on faith
• 02/03/12: Can Romney get serious?
• 01/27/12: Obama is like an Italian ship captain
• 01/25/12: Newt Gingrich's first 100 days
• 01/20/12: Obama's Keystone pipeline lies
• 01/18/12: Critics worse than urinating Marines
• 01/13/12: Ron Paul is a cartoonish character
• 01/11/12: Newt Gingrich upset by Mitt Romney's brilliance
• 01/09/12: How about regulating presidents, too?
• 01/04/12: How America smothers itself
• 12/30/11: A tax break that helps break the nation
• 12/28/11: Watch out for the banana peel, Newt
• 12/21/11: A tale of two men
• 12/16/11: Strange happenings in Russia
• 12/14/11: Tim Tebow is a man of character
• 12/09/11: A populist, envy-mongering fraud divisively exacerbating resentment among different groups of Americans
• 12/07/11: Tax games threaten nation
• 12/05/11: Why Wal-Mart serves us better than Barney Frank
• 11/30/11: Not writing off Newt
• 11/28/11: Answers to the Iranian threat
• 11/23/11: Failure of the incumbency investment
• 11/18/11: Occupiers: Chop off their heads!
• 11/16/11: Obama asks jobless to sacrifice
• 11/09/11: Michael Moore's insufferable occupation
• 11/04/11: Political tipping point is coming
• 11/02/11: Idealogues versus 7 billion
• 10/28/11: Obama games on student loans
• 10/26/11: Wit and quick moves v. humanity and thoroughgoing honesty? It's no contest —- or at least shouldn't be
• 10/07/11: Baptists, bootleggers and Wall Street protesters
• 10/05/11: Federal law will get you even if you watch out
• 09/28/11: Leftist bugbears on the march
• 09/23/11: Still hope for coal to help us
• 09/21/11: Obama's Madoff ploy
• 09/19/11: U.S. can't afford to wait until it happens
• 09/14/11: Defending -- and strengthening -- gung ho collectivism
• 09/12/11: A pipeline to better times
• 09/08/11: Obama just keeps destroying jobs
• 09/06/11: Ultra-feminists thwarting justice
• 08/31/11: Corporations are people? Yes, Count the ways
• 08/26/11: What an earthquake tells us about debt
• 08/25/11: The tyranny of scientific consensus
• 08/23/11: Fracking hardly a public health threat
• 08/17/11: Why Obamacare won't control births
• 08/15/11: Balanced budget amendment unbalanced idea
• 08/10/11: Kerry's war on citizen speech
• 08/05/11: Upside to the compromise leaving the door open for obnoxious maneuvers
• 08/03/11: The people who may save America
• 07/29/11: On making deals, Obama is no LBJ
• 07/27/11: The threat behind the debt
• 07/23/11: Mean opposition to means-testing
• 07/20/11: Leftist babble makes debt crisis even worse
• 07/18/11: Time to raise demagoguery ceiling
• 07/13/11: Obama treating treaties badly
• 07/08/11: Is decline of U.S. exaggerated?
• 07/05/11: Not math deficiency, but demagoguery
© 2011, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
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