AFL-CIO: Time to repeal the sequester

[babylonsister]

Thoughts?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/02/27/afl-cio-time-to-repeal-the-sequester/


AFL-CIO: Time to repeal the sequester

Posted by Greg Sargent on February 27, 2013 at 11:50 am



With Washington mired deep in the manufactured crisis known as sequestration, one option for resolving the crisis is getting almost no attention: Simply repealing the sequester.

That may now change. The AFL-CIO is coming out today for a repeal of the sequester. The labor federation will press the case in the days ahead that the sequester perpetuates destructive government-by-crisis, and that more austerity — replacing the sequester with other spending cuts — is exactly what the country doesn’t need at a time of mass unemployment and lackluster growth.

“We need to repeal the sequester,” Damon Silvers, the policy director of the AFL-CIO, told me in an interview this morning. “It’s bad economic policy, and it feeds a dynamic that encourages hostage taking. We are calling on elected officials not to play this game of substituting one bad thing for another bad thing. We’re insisting that our elected officials not buy into this inside Washington game of manufactured crises.”

This morning, the AFL-CIO’s executive council voted unanimously to call for repeal of the sequester, and I’m told the AFL-CIO planning to organize events designed to mobilize behind this goal in the days ahead.

snip//

And whatever the merits of repealing the sequester, it’s certainly healthy for the political conversation — which has been largely hijacked by deficit mania — to have labor out there demanding a wholesale refocusing on jobs and economic suffering.

[louis c]

1. Let me see, where did I hear that before?

Oh, ya, my DU post 2 days ago.

DU Link to Monday (2/25)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022427527

[babylonsister]

2. Sorry, I didn't see that 2 days ago; this was dated today.

I do miss some good ones.

[louis c]

3. My point wasn't that you posted this after me

It's a very good post. It's that I had that idea even before the AFL-CIO and I didn't get one response here at DU.

I heard Rachael Maddow say the same thing. Now, with Bob Woodward assailing the President for originally coming up with this idea (sequestration), this is definitely the tact he should take.