G’wan, throw me in dat briar patch!

Jonathan Capehart (Washington Post):

Progressives and other peeved supporters of President Obama who aren’t happy with the all-cuts-no-revenue deal to raise the debt ceiling need to see it as the beginning of a very long (and necessary) process to get the nation’s fiscal house in order.  But it also means that the president will have to be more aggressive in his use of presidential power.  In short, I want him to use everything the bully pulpit has to offer to get what he wants, including shutting down the government if he must.  After what we just went through to avert economic catastrophe, padlocking Washington ain’t no big thing.

Walter Russell Mead:

For large numbers of voters the professional classes who staff the bureaucracies, foundations and policy institutes in and around government are themselves a special interest.  It is not that evil plutocrats control innocent bureaucrats; many voters believe that the progressive administrative class is a social order that has its own special interests...

The problem goes even deeper than hostility toward perceived featherbedding and life tenure for government workers.  The professionals and administrators who make up the progressive state are seen as a hostile power with an agenda of their own that they seek to impose on the nation.

Only a beltway progressive would think that "padlocking Washington” could serve as an existential threat.

For the rest of us, ehhh... "no big thing.”


Capehart via Insty.

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Just in case you hadn’t figured it out...

Cato’s Chris Edwards:

Republicans and Democrats have come together on a "historic” budget deal that cuts federal spending by more than $2 trillion over 10 years.  The Washington Post’s lead story calls the cuts "sharp” and "severe.”

However, the budget deal doesn’t cut federal spending at all.

Only the weasels in Washington would call annual increases that reach $191 billion by the 9^th year a "cut.”  They lie, and the DSM helps ’em.


Related:

Cato via Bill Quick.

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