Political posturing is defined as taking a position on an issue strictly because it is politically advantageous to do so — for example, being against something solely because the other side is in favor of it. Political posturing has been a favorite tactic of politicians practically since the invention of politics.
However, in my lifetime there have been two magnificent examples of political posturing at its worst. The first was after 9/11, when every politician on the face of the earth gave President George W. Bush the power to pass virtually whatever legislation he wanted, including the PATRIOT Act, because it would be political suicide to speak against it. The second and more embarrassing example just happened in the past month.
The sequester was part of the Budget Control Act of 2011 put in place to ensure that the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction came to an agreement to cut $1.5 trillion from the deficit in the next ten years. If they did that by December 23, 2011, the sequester’s cuts (which were passed on a bipartisan basis, by the way), would’ve been completely avoided.
But as was to be expected from the complete disaster that was the 112th Congress, they could not come to a deal by the required date. Realizing that the combination of deadly budget cuts and the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts would send the country into a recession, they pushed back the deadline until March 1 of this year in a much-publicized “fiscal cliff” deal.
However, that wasn’t enough, and, of course, on March 1, the sequester went into effect, cutting more than $1.2 trillion from virtually every part of government, the most hard-hit areas being the military and domestic discretionary spending.
What does this have to do with political posturing?
In a hilarious turn of events, the president and congressional Republicans have gone back and forth in an attempt to push the blame for the _bipartisan_ sequester onto each other. Most of the push has come from the king of political posturing, President Barack Obama, who has falsely claimed that the cuts will affect White House janitorial staff and has decided to unnecessarily shut down tours as a result of the cuts.
Unfortunately, the American people aren’t buying it. A Reuters poll released Wednesday shows Obama’s approval rating has dropped by 7 percent and that nearly half of Independents blame both Democrats and Republicans for sequestration taking effect.
When I imagine the scene on Capitol Hill these days, it’s hard not to imagine Obama, Boehner, Pelosi, McConnell and Reid as a bunch of crying infants, all wanting to get their way and pushing the blame for consequences for their inaction on each other.
Because of the lack of leadership on Capitol Hill, 70,000 students are getting kicked out of Head Start programs. Because of unwillingness to approach bipartisan agreements, special education gets cut by $840 million. As a result of inaction on the Hill, $1.94 billion gets cut from public housing.
When will enough be enough?
When President Obama wanted to pass health care reform, he used all of his political leverage to ensure that it was done. But when it comes to cuts to programs that will affect Americans now, he is content to pass blame. When the time for Speaker Boehner came to redeem his image and trailblaze a path to agreement, he was mute. It seems that our politicians are incapable of succeeding at the simplest task, and as a result, Americans suffer. There’s a simple path to solving this stagnation in progress. Vote in 2014.