Either they're playing the brinkmanship game again or the government shutdown is really going to happen on April 8. Looks like the Republicans are out of control, thanks to their tea party contingent.
... The tension surrounding the talks and the potential for a shutdown boiled into public view Friday evening as House Republican leaders issued a series of harsh statements accusing Democrats of failing to make a serious offer on spending cuts. Representative Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican and the House majority leader, labeled as “completely far-fetched” a claim by Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, that negotiators were making progress.
Speaker John A. Boehner joined in with a statement that accused Democrats of lacking a fiscal plan. “If Democrats don’t have a plan, do they intend to shut down the government because they can’t agree among themselves?” he asked.
Democrats fired back, suggesting that Republicans were backtracking under pressure from House conservatives allied with the Tea Party who were opposed to any compromise with Democrats in the budget debate.
“After days of positive negotiations, with significant flexibility shown by the speaker, the House Republican leadership is back to agonizing over whether to give in to right-wing demands that they abandon any compromise on their extreme cuts,” Mr. Schumer said. “Instead of lashing out at Democrats in a knee-jerk way, we hope House Republicans will finally stand up to the Tea Party and resume the negotiations that had seemed so full of promise.” ...NYT
Paul Krugman is very clear about how completely unnecessary all this is. Austerity doesn't work. It will erode any economic gains we're making and may put us right back into the economic dumpster.
Austerity advocates predicted that spending cuts would bring quick dividends in the form of rising confidence, and that there would be few, if any, adverse effects on growth and jobs; but they were wrong.
And they continue to be wrong. Just imagine what Congress could be accomplishing if not for this blatant, deliberate wrong turn in policy. We're paying -- heavily -- for each bad step they take along the way. They have set up a straw man. They're using our money and our time to beat it to death -- and the country along with it.
