Seen This Movie Before

And it always ends the same way:

A new White House report paints dire consequences for virtually all areas of government operations, including the military, if Congress does not act to prevent deep, across-the-board spending cuts set to go into effect Jan. 2.

For the Pentagon, the reductions would mean delaying equipment purchases and repairs, trimming services for military families and compromising the readiness of units not actively deployed.

But the reductions---known in Washington-speak as “sequestration”---would also mean fewer FBI agents and federal prosecutors, a dramatic rollback in federal scientific research, curtailed food inspections and fewer air-traffic controllers.

Now, our leaders on both sides of the aisle seem to be in accord that this would a bad, horrible, very bad thing if it were allowed to happen. So since we're all in agreement, why not eliminate the possibility with a simple vote? Unless our leaders aren't really leveling with us (crazy idea, I know) and are simply using this whole pseudo-debte as a conditioning mechanism, i.e., to inure us all to the inevitability of future spending cuts so that when they finally do agree on Smart & Sensible® entitlement reforms---with fewer cuts spread out over more government agencies---they'll all appear by contrast to be sane and reasonable men? the alternative, of course, would be for them to level with us, and tell us that we really don't deserve the kind of government we want anymore, which would likely not endear us to them. Not good in an election year!

But I don't think we should delude ourselves anymore into thinking that Team Democrat is going to go to the wall to defend Social Security and Medicaid when the chips are down; with all their anguished posturing and doom-gloom scenarios, they've already tipped their hand. Which is to say, when they offer up Social Security and Medicaid for sacrifice, the will justify the exercise by telling us that they're doing it for our own good because the only alternative would be fiscal cliffs and Taxmageddon and the ruin of the Republic, even though none of this would be remotely true. Hope to be proved wrong here, but I rather doubt that's going to happen.

---Vitelius