Regarding Congress’ inability to forge a deficit-reduction deal by yesterday’s deadline, Mayor Bloomberg had this to say: “[The] failure . . . is a damning indictment of Washington’s ability to govern.”
Bloomberg hammered President Obama as well: “It’s the chief executive’s job to provide leadership in difficult situations. I don’t see that happening.”
The mayor’s restraint was admirable.
The deficit-reduction effort that began earlier in the year — a 12-member panel was to identify $1.2 trillion in deficit savings over the next decade, to be followed by an up-or-down congressional vote — was never anything more than a contemptible, cynical charade.
It was cover for a continuing congressional spending spree, while enabling individual members of Congress to avoid being held accountable for their irresponsibility.
The committee members themselves think they did a peachy job:
“Despite our inability to bridge the committee’s significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation’s fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve,” they said in a joint statement.
But of course they mean to leave it for the next generation — wiped clean of their own fingerprints.
The job itself was astonishingly simple: It amounted to trimming $120 billion from the budget in each of the next 10 years, about 3 percent of annual expenditures.
Taxpayers have long since cut their own spending commensurately. Why shouldn’t — why couldn’t — Congress do the same?
Because it never wanted to — and it never intended to.
Just as Obama never intended to spend an iota of political capital moving the process along. He’s in pedal-to-the-metal campaign mode, and that’s where he’ll stay.
Never mind that the $1.2 trillion in cuts will be made mindlessly, by formula, with no regard whatsoever to the consequences.
And no meaningful paper trail by which individual lawmakers can be measured — or held accountable.
“A damning indictment of Washington’s ability to govern,” Mr. Mayor?
You are way too kind.