Other pre-commitment devices that didn’t work on Congress

Should not have eaten all that turtle food.

Should not have eaten all those minnows

It’s semi-official: sequestration has failed. The actual mechanism is going to function just fine; come tomorrow, $85 billion in domestic and military spending cuts that nobody likes will automatically go into place, because Congress could not obey their own pre-commitment device. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Sequestration was supposed to be so awful that it would force Democrats and Republicans to agree on alternative deficit reduction strategies. Instead, after months of arguing and temporizing, our legislators have set themselves to the hard work of accepting that sequestration isn’t so bad after all. Congress is like a man who ties a string around his finger to remember to buy insulin and, after several months, loses circulation and has his finger amputated. Here are some other pre-commitment devices that didn’t work on Congress.

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Republicans offer to let Obama perform sequestration cuts

I'm just going to lie here, and you do whatever you want.

I’m just going to lie here, and you do whatever you want.

With sequestration just a few days away, congressional Republicans have drafted a plan to let the President apply $85 billion in cuts to defense and social spending. You might remember sequestration as the “I’ll clean the garage tomorrow” note of the legislative branch, now stuck to the refrigerator as a concrete reminder that Congress cannot achieve its own goals, meet its own deadlines or successfully negotiate with itself. Hence this offer to cede its authority. After twice failing and, now, staring down another collapse of will, our elected representatives admit they have a problem and appeal to a higher power.

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Congress on plan to wreck nation: not our fault

Boehner Reid

This picture has been consistently described as a hug.

My favorite part of the slow news period between Christmas and the New Year is the Times’s daily countdown to fiscal armageddon. This morning, Harry Reid pretty much told us all to buy canned food. According to the Times, he spent much of his day on the Senate floor “excoriating” House Republicans for their refusal to consider a bill extending the Bush tax cuts on households that make less than $250,000 a year. Thus excoriated, the House stayed home. We are going over that cliff. Having imposed a future penalty no one wanted in order to force itself to come to agreement, Congress has argued its way into penalization. The legislative branch of the US government is like an addict who flushes his drugs down the toilet and then drowns.

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