[NonValueAdded]

but you miss the point of the sequester. Obama suggested it as a poison pill. It was DESIGNED to make across-the-board brainless cuts that would be guaranteed to cause pain. Consider it zero-tolerance budgeting.

Now, Lord knows what the Republicans were thinking, probably that the cuts would be so bad no sane person would let them stand so the RATs would want to negotiate. And the pubbies went along with just the tax increase (AGAIN, the fools), expecting the cuts to come next because there was the horror of the sequester on the horizon.

OTOH, the RATs were peeing themselves laughing because they knew there would be no negotiating and that every little bad thing could be blamed on the republicans.

Now, perhaps the RATs overplayed their hand. Maybe they didn't expect Boehner to cave so quickly on the tax increase. Maybe they went to the well once too many times. Maybe they were so overconfident that they forgot how transparent the scheme would be. They surely did not like for word to get out that this was simply a cut in the rate of increase.

But leave it to the republicans to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Instead of a bandaid on the air traffic problem, they should have pushed for a total solution. Not eliminating the sequester but rather eliminating the no-brains across-the-board cut thing, making Cabinet Secretaries completely responsible for deciding where the cuts would land, putting the Executive on the hook for governing wisely.

[Baynative]

The biggest failing of the congressional republicans is that they are still letting the idea that this is about "Cutting back" be spread to low information voters.

This is NOT a cut; its a reduction in projected increases.

[mtnwmn]

I don’t think money was involved. I think they reconfigured the budget.