The House overwhelmingly passed a measure to end furloughs at the Federal Aviation Administration, sending it to President Obama for his signature. White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday the president would sign the bill, which the Senate approved late Thursday by unanimous consent. Meanwhile, Liberals are upset, complaining that Democrats caved to Republican demands, and have essentially lost the sequester fight:
The point of sequestration is supposedly to create just enough chaos that regular people — people with political clout, such as, say, business travelers — demand that Congress fix it. Or as the Democrats conceived it, to create the public pressure they need to knock Republicans off their absolutist position on taxes.
Well, they got their outcry…and then promptly folded. They allowed Republicans to inaccurately characterize the FAA furloughs as a political stunt. Then without any organized effort to cast the flight delays as part of the same problem that’s also keeping poor people homeless they assented to providing special treatment to the traveling class.
So now the big, predictable opportunity to return to the sequestration debate under genuine public scrutiny is gone.