Today progressive commentators are bewailing a House bill that would allow the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) enough flexibility in administering the sequester spending cuts to avoid disrupting air travel. Furloughed federal air traffic controllers should be able to return to the job soon. Progressive angst over this exception to the sequester takes two directions. One evaluates the gamemanship skills on display and finds that Democrats "lost," while the other asks about fairness. WaPo's Ezra Klein efficiently integrates these concerns:
In effect, what Democrats said Friday was that in any case where the political pain caused by sequestration becomes unbearable, they will agree to cancel that particular piece of the bill while leaving the rest of the law untouched. The result is that sequestration is no longer particularly politically threatening, but it’s even more unbalanced: Cuts to programs used by the politically powerful will be addressed, but cuts to programs that affects the politically powerless will persist. It’s worth saying this clearly: The pain of sequestration will be concentrated on those who lack political power. I'm here to add my voice, small as it is, to those concerned with the latter issue. Once again, thanks to the ideological blindness, ignorance, and cruelty of the GOP, along with the short-sightedness and timidity of our Democratic politicians, the folks on the bottom got screwed. I do, however, have a special, personal sequester ax to grind.↧