Wimpy GOP weasels out of fiscal responsibility

I have to agree with Charlie Pierce. I think Brian Beutler missed the mark a little in this piece about GOPers dealing with sequester cuts in their own districts. You should, of course, read Charlie's post because he's smarter and more eloquent than me. But I'll add this much.

Brian is right that Republicans love spending cuts. Their base loves spending cuts. Everybody loves spending cuts as long as they're happening somewhere else. Because their government handouts are necessary. It's all those other people who are wasting the taxpayers' money.

But as Charlie says, it's no given the blame will fall on the Republicans. It's not like they're going to take any responsibility. Take for example:

“My bill will require the Office of Management and Budget to submit a plan to Congress that implements the President’s cuts without harming our civilian employee’s ability to keep pace with their demands and provide for their families,” said Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX). “In the district I represent, the civilian employees of Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD) and Naval Air Station Corpus Christi (NASCC) could be furloughed for up to 22 days. Our local airport towers in Corpus Christi and Victoria might also face extreme cuts. Those reductions in force are unacceptable.”

Catch that? "The President’s cuts." Obviously implying Obama is picking and choosing to punish GOP districts with the sequester and the same thing isn't happening in Democratic districts. The base will believe it because they don't get real news, they watch Fox. Neither will they find out Blake's bill is a sham solely designed to reinforce the fiction they're being singled out.

There are millions of people in America who have no clue the sequester was purposely designed to be a chainsaw massacre on the budget of every agency, so indiscriminately murderous that no sane person with a milligram of compassion would be willing to pull the starting cord to inflict the mayhem. Nearly the entire GOP pulled that damn cord in unison and threw it into the innocent crowd.

The alleged neutral observers of BigMedia aren't going to tell the underinformed that 80% or more of what Republicans say is a big fat lie. Doesn't fit the business model. Besides, they're already fully vested in the Obama invented the sequester meme, premised on the flimsiest technicality. Which I guess is good enough for anti-government work -- at least when a Democrat is in charge. [graphic credit]