The deep government spending cuts that are about to happen reveal
a huge miscalculation by the White House.
In Kentucky, home of the Senate Republican leader, Mitch
McConnell, residents woke up Monday to news like this: Widespread
government spending cuts that begin on Friday will cost 21,484 jobs
in the state. A construction project at Fort Knox will come to a
halt. Three airports may endure partial shutdowns. Nearly $12
million in grants to public schools would be cut, putting at risk
the jobs of 160 teachers and aides. More than 1,000 children would
lose access to Head Start.
The White House released warnings for every state Sunday in the
hope that voters would besiege Republican lawmakers like Mr.
McConnell and the House speaker, John Boehner, to stop the $85
billion in cuts, known as a sequester. President Obama wants to
replace the sequester with a mix of tax increases on the rich and
less damaging spending reductions. Republicans say they won't
consider any proposal that isn't all cuts, so the sequester is all
but certain to begin this week.
The White House strategy on the sequester was built around a
familiar miscalculation about Republicans. It assumed that they
would be reasonable and negotiate a realistic alternative to
indiscriminate cuts. Because the reductions hurt defense programs
long held sacrosanct by Republicans, the White House thought it had
leverage that would reduce the damage to the domestic programs
favored by Democrats. It turns out, though, that the defense hawks
in the party are outnumbered. More Republicans seem to care about
reducing spending at all costs, and the prospect of damaging vital
government programs does not seem to bother them. "Fiscal questions
trump defense in a way they never would have after 9/11,"
Representative Tom Cole, a Republican of Oklahoma, told The New York
Times. "But the war in Iraq is over. Troops are coming home from
Afghanistan, and we want to secure the cuts."
Cuts this draconian have no place in a tottering economy. But,
realistically, the only way to break this standoff is for the cuts
to exact their toll on daily life, causing Republicans to face
pressure from the public to negotiate an alternative plan with
higher revenues in March as part of talks to finance the government
for the final six months of the fiscal year.
The details the White House released over the weekend are eye-
opening. In Ohio, Mr. Boehner's home state, the cuts could cost
30,000 jobs. An 8 percent cut in federal research grants "would
probably bring us to our knees," said Dr. Thomas Boat, dean of the
University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine, according to The
Cincinnati Enquirer.
New York would lose $42.7 million in education aid, according to
the White House, putting at risk nearly 600 jobs for teachers and
their aides. About 12,000 civilian defense workers would be
furloughed, and there would be big cuts to grants for law
enforcement, job training, child care, public health and
environmental protection.
The White House should have released these kinds of details
months ago. Instead, it failed to discuss the consequences, fearing
political blame while predicting the Republicans would cave. The
result of that miscalculation -- and of the Republican disdain for
the health of the economy and those who depend on government
services -- will become clearer in just a few days.
