Preening

Chait gets this exactly right:

The two parties are currently at loggerheads over the manufactured crises of budget sequestration and the debt ceiling. President Obama’s position is that the two parties should enact a mix of cuts to retirement programs and revenue increases through tax reform. The Republican position is that no more revenue can be considered, and further deficit reduction must consist entirely of domestic spending cuts.
The merits of the two positions can of course be debated. What is beyond dispute is that Obama’s negotiating position is exactly the same as the centrists. If they believed that the $600 billion in revenue Obama secured, on top of the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts agreed to in 2011, was enough revenue, and Obama was demanding an excessively revenue-heavy solution to the deficit issue, then obviously they should argue as much. But they do not believe that. In fact, the Bowles-Simpson plan would raise far more revenuethan Obama is asking for. One party stands completely in accord with their position, and it has not happened entirely because the other party stands against it.
Why, then, don’t they say this? Part of the answer is careerist. The elite centrist drone is emitted by people who deem non-partisanship an essential part of their job description. If they concede that one party is advocating their agenda, then you could flip the sentiment around and correctly conclude that they are advocating the agenda of a party; therefore, they would be partisan and have thus forfeited the entire basis of their claim to respectability.

Yep. No one is actually interested in a balanced approach to deficit reduction. They aren’t noting that we’ve already enacted $2.4 Trillion worth of it, only a quarter of which was revenue. 
They just want to pat themselves on the back at how bipartisan and responsible they are. It’s all just status signaling.

Meanwhile, a whole hell of a lot of people are suffering in unemployment. We continue to ignore a very real, very immediate problem to make room for a “serious conversation” about a hypothetical future problem.

That’s pretty fucking insane. 

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