fewer votes than the democrats, the house republicans kept the house because of the way districts are drawn. so now you have a political party with an agenda that is not working at the polls but that won t for political reasons or can t for political reasons, compromise on that agenda. and so the only leverage they have, the only thing they can do is use their control of the house, not to pass legislation. it is not what they re doing. but to create crises around the moments when action would be needed from them to stop something terrible from happening if we do nothing. this is a very dangerous way for political systems to work or for a political party to willpower. the sequester is bad policy but it is not the end of the world. it will just hurt growth. but remember, the sequester is bad enough that both sides swore it would never happen. both sides said the sequester was a punishment that would be so severe that it would force them into a compromise. the definition of crisis in this
s, anti-austerity programs. and ben bernanke, saying you guys did this all wrong, if you hurt the sequester and hurt these jobs now it will be harder in the long-term. at a time like this, one of the best ways to actually contribute to your revenues is to get the economy growing quicker so more people are back to work paying taxes. when you have ben bernanke, who is no radical, in fact, i think he is a republican. appointed by george w. bush. making these points, you know we re in upside down land. and where you are is where i kind of landed now. people say what should we do? even members of congress ask me that. the first thing that comes to my mind, stop digging. stop making it worse, take an oath, go home, work on immigration reform. guns, there is lots for you to do. if you can t help the economy, stop whacking at it. i think that would be a good
and president obama and speaker boehner publicly say they don t want it to happen. this is the first time we actually let one of these happen. what is stopping the sequester from being stopped? there is one thing, one single policy decision that lies at the heart of the washington crises. it is the same thing that made the super committee fail and the grand bargain fail and that led to this debacle that led to this sequester. it is the republicans insistence, combined with the utter refusal to make it part of a deal. it is true, house republicans did declare to let them raise the taxes by 6 billion, grover norquist agreed to score that one as a tax cut. before that happened, they rejected that one as a debt reduction. in the last four years we cut about 1.4 trillion in spending and raised about 50 billion in taxes.
idea. jared bernstein, thank you for joining us on friday. sure. coming up, what does it mean when republicans say the president is not leading? i actually don t quite know at this point, except it is a funny thing to say from people who then wax poetic about the constitution. that is next. and what does the harlem shake video have to do with the sequester? more than you think. you name it.i ve hooked it. but there s one. one that s always eluded me. thought i had it in the blizzard of 93. ha! never even came close. sometimes, i actually think it s mocking me. [ engine revs ] what?! quattro!!!!!
taxes have been about a quarter of our total debt reduction. but this is no more. the tax debate is completely over. they prefer the sequester to replacement that includes even a dollar, even a hint, a shadow of revenue. in 2011, when the sequester was created there were two ideas for keeping it from happening. one, the super committee, which could maybe come to a deficit deal before this sequester hit. the other idea, and this was the big one, was the election would decide the tax issue. the american people would decide the tax issue. here is eric cantor, speaking about the failed grand bargain, which would have finished all of this in 2011 with a deal that had both taxes and spending cuts in a recent interview. the reason why we said no, in that meeting don t do this deal, because what that deal was, was basically going along with the sense that you had to increase taxes. you had to give on the question of you know, middle class tax