Freedom Line Blog

In addition to my column now out, I also wrote a blog post at The American Spectator to explain why this deal ticked from being unacceptable to being, well, something less than utterly disastrous. (Obviously, that is not much of a recommendation, but it is important perspective.)

Here’s part of it:

Well, the end result was indeed that the sequestration cuts were replaced with other cuts. Or at least they were offset with an equal amount of “savings.” Now, it is true that small portion of the offset comes from a change in Roth IRA accounting rather than from spending cuts. And it is true that the cuts aren’t “specified” as I had hoped. But the offsets do come in the form of law — in budget “caps” going forward that, while hardly foolproof, do actually provide several important hurdles in the way of those who would exceed them. Moreover, by keeping intact under law the exact same budget targets as under the original sequestration deal, and by keeping 5/6ths of those savings in the form of the very hard-to-evade bludgeon of sequestration (if Congress doesn’t act, sequestration is automatic; the GOP need not do any more bargaining to achieve those savings), fiscal conservatives are no worse off than they were a week ago. Tactically, in fact, they are better off, because they preserved sequestration, but without the threat of higher taxes that will kick in for everybody and automatically, if they don’t act.

In addition, I will have plenty to say in the next week or so about how Republicans/conservatives can “play their hand” better in coming months than they have done so far.