where the automatic reflex of being pro-defense has been at least overlaid with an equally important impulse toward smaller government. it would take months for that x-ray image to fully develop. i think both parties have a sense that this would be a negative event for the economy. remember maryland congressman john delaney? well on february 12th, he headed to his first state of the union address. i don t think a sequester is going to happen. defense cuts were supposed to be a poison pill for republicans. yes. they were never going to swallow it back in the conventional wisdom of the past. the president of the united states. democrats, republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts, known here in washington as the sequester, are a really bad idea. true.
another shutdown experience next year. we ll concede the one victory they have had since the obama era began. shouldn t they be having ptsd? shouldn t they be worried? they should be. look, the government shutdown was a disaster. the reason for that is we had no chance whatsoever of defunding obamacare. the lesson isn t that republicans shouldn t fight. it s that we shouldn t fight stupid. we shouldn t pick fights we can t win. in obamacare what we were trying to do, republicans were trying to do is get the democrats to the undo the current law we didn t like. in the case of the budget control act, the sequester is the law. we don t have to do anything. cuts are automatic. we say let s stick with the spending cuts democrats and republicans agree to that your president signed into law and let s continue the spending cuts. instead we are agreeing to $63
budget deal in washington as we hear growing calls for republicans to reject it. marc thiessen is a former speech writer for george bush and a fellow at the american enterprise institute. you have an interesting take suggesting that the republicans on capitol hill have a case of ptsd or post traumatic stress disorder. what do you mean? exactly. since barack obama took office the republicans have basically he s run the table over the republicans from this stimulus to obamacare to the fiscal cliff tax increases. the one victory republicans had, the one government reducing victory was the budget control act, sequester. they are giving it up. spending was supposed to go down for the next year. instead we are raising it by $63 billion over the next two years. why. they have ptsd. they are scarred by the government shutdown experience and they are afraid of having another fiscal fight with president obama in january. paul ryan said the reason he s doing it is we don t want
exaggerated the effects of those cuts to try to scare people. and so on march 1, a unified republican caucus let the sequester cuts go into effect. were democrats surprised that they actually did? i think each side was surprised. the democrats felt the republicans would be so upset about the defense cut, they never let it happen and the republicans thought the democrats would be so concern about cuts to education and things like that that they would never let it happen. here it did. the sequester cuts only a small percentage of increases in federal spending. but that was still a huge accomplishment for small government conservatives. then december 10. democrat and republican negotiators agreed to set aside the sequester and increase spending. though they say their deal reduces the deficit. tea party groups howled. frankly, i just think that they ve lost all credibility.
that was the theory. would it hold? actually see anything changing until we do hit the government collapsing? i hope not. january 31st, bucks county, georgia. i believe in the constitution as our founding fathers made it. that s congressman paul brown. president obama had republicans like him in mind when he proposed the sequester. back in 2011. if we went back to the original intent of the constitution we wouldn t have a debt ceiling problem. people need to remember what the sequester is, how it came about. and that was over a fight over the debt ceiling. a fight andrew mccarthy of the national review says was picked by tea party republicans like brown. a lot of the professional politicians of both parties said, oh, they re crazy. they re going to cause us to default. they re going to throw the world economy into chaos. but eventually they forced a