EJ Dionne on sequester madness [View all]

[MBS]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-ending-the-permanent-crisis/2013/02/27/32c4f81e-8119-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_story.html

Incisive analysis of the situation, with some interesting ideas about how to get out of this nightmare.
Sample excerpts:

Ever since they took control of the House of Representatives in 2011, Republicans have made journeys to the fiscal brink as commonplace as summertime visits to the beach or the ballpark. The country has been put through a series of destructive showdowns over budget issues we once resolved through the normal give-and-take of negotiations. . .

Here is a way out of permanent crisis: President Obama should demand the repeal of all artificial deadlines and tell both houses of Congress that he won’t make further proposals until each actually passes a replacement to the sequester — not a gimmick or something that looks like an alternative, but the real thing.With everyone on the record, normal discussions could begin, and Washington would no longer look like the set of a horror movie in which a new catastrophe lurks around every corner. . .
. . . What Obama can do is expose the cause of this madness, which is the dysfunction of the Republican Party. Journalists don’t like saying this because it sounds partisan. But the truth is the truth, whether it sounds partisan or not. . .

And a staunch conservative has succinctly explained why this problem really is a Republican problem. In an admirably candid interview Monday with Ezra Klein on MSNBC, Ben Domenech, a conservative blogger, said the new tea party Republicans in the House don’t want their leadership to sit down with Obama to talk because “they have their doubts about the ability of Republicans to negotiate any better situation.” Read that carefully: We are in this mess because Republicans don’t trust their leaders to bargain. Domenech added that many conservatives “don’t buy this distinction between smart cuts and dumb cuts,” a distinction that is not “all that critical.” This is astonishing: Government is bad, so all cuts are more or less the same. And you wonder why we have a crisis?
. . .
The nation is exhausted with fake crises that voters thought they ended with their verdict in the last election. Those responsible for the Washington horror show should be held accountable. And only one party is using shutdowns, cliffs and debt ceilings as routine political weapons.