TCTI: Too Crazy Too Ignore
 Dave Ross
AP: 06d37f49-d269-4722-a4ea-5660ed04e976
Then you have the Democratic camp worried that if the TSA lines do not grow to three hours, they will be accused of making it up. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

And now - Best Actors in an Ongoing Political Drama

BY Dave Ross  on February 25, 2013 @ 5:59 am (Updated: 6:44 am - 2/25/13 )

I was reading the various commentaries over the weekend about our latest budget emergency, and it appears that the political class now has two primary concerns:

Who gets blamed if, in a week, the worst happens - and who gets blamed if, in a week, the worst doesn't happen.

We have the Republican camp worried they might have overplayed their hand in letting the sequester happen, and that when the TSA lines are three hours long, they will be blamed. Then you have the Democratic camp, which has been running from house to house screaming, 'The sequester is coming! The sequester is coming!' Worried that if the TSA lines do NOT grow to three hours, they will be accused of making it up.

But the parties do it because no one pays attention unless there's a cliffhanger - and if you don't have a real one you make it up - like they did in "Argo."

Interesting that the first lady Sunday night awarded Best Picture to "Argo," a film which told the story about a real event, with actors who looked like the actual people involved, but in which the climactic escape scenes were completely fabricated. I think history may come to the same conclusion about this sequester crisis.

If we really wanted to fix the economy, we would find out who's hoarding all the cash the government has been pumping into the banks, and why they're not creating jobs with it. Now that could provide some real drama.

Read more:
What the sequester cuts will look like in Washington

Dave Ross, KIRO Radio Talk Show Host
Dave Ross is co-host of The Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO Radio (weekdays 9-Noon) and never too far from the spotlight.
More Dave Ross

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Comments (22)


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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Dave, you should know as well as anyone else that WHATEVER happens
    February 25, 2013 6:07 am
    each side will blame the other side. - although Harry Reid just might throw in a weird twist or two and blame both sides.

    But personally I don't know if a longer wait in the TSA line is a good thing or a bad thing. After all, do you appreciate the proctology exam more at the start of your physical - or at the end ???

    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • logical open mind wrote...
    Dave Ross-have you ever considered Obama's policies, Obamacare, regulation and anti-business has kept corps and companies from hiring?
    February 25, 2013 8:42 am
    or are you blindly in love with the president?
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • cdbtx wrote...
    The is why the public (Copied from Linda Thomas blog)
    February 25, 2013 6:19 am
    does not trust the media. Instead of researching and reporting on all news the Media partakes the position of Political Cheerleader and repeats the party line rhetoric.

    Sequestration - the reality. Try Google and you'll find the facts about sequestration within 3 minutes...

    This year, the sequester would slow the growth in federal spending by just $85 billion, from an expected, pre-sequester budget of $3.64 trillion - less than a 2.3% reduction.... Why isn't this reported?

    Because of ongoing contracts and the Byzantine labyrinth of federal budgeting, only $44 billion of that $85 billion will actually be cut from this year's budget.... Why isn't this reported?

    The rest will be cut in future years, but attributed to this year's budget. So, the real reduction in federal spending this year is just 1.2%. Why isn't this reported?

    If the federal government can't reduce spending by less than a penny-and-a-half on the dollar without throwing us into the dark ages, something is truly wrong. Why isn't this reported?

    The media has become a mirror of our politicians ethics and integrity...

    Any doubt why I would never spend 1 cent for the Seattle Times?

    Dave are you in the same category as the general media... www.google.com - then type sequestration facts.

    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Corporate profits are through the roof, but, as Dave notes, "they aren't creating jobs with that money"
    February 25, 2013 7:18 am
    No, they aren't.

    Perhaps we can now retire one economic fallacy that has spawned more than its share of political rhetoric. It is not demonstrably true that business will respond to improving economic conditions and/or lower tax rates by hiring a lot more bodies to produce whatever goods or services are being sold. That might have been true in the industrial age, but we are now squarely in the post-industrial age.

    We are no longer, (at least in America), a smokestack economy. In the last few decades, far more billionaires have achieved that status by using relatively small groups of people to design systems and processes that allow businesses to reduce their payrolls dramatically. Businesses have responded with enthusiasm, as they must if they intend to remain competitive.

    Back in the 50's, 60's, and even the 70's it wasn't uncommon to walk into a place of business and see row upon row of desks. What those desks had in common (besides a cigarette burning in an ash tray on roughly half of them) was a wage-earner crunching numbers with an adding machine or hammering away on a typewriter (with carbon paper for copies). Today, that entire office full of people has been replaced by a $500 computer and a $300 program, about what one would, in this day, pay a single typist or bookkeeper for a single week of work.

    We now need a lot fewer people to get much more done. The 80% of the workforce who are working full time, and the 65% who are still earning a reasonable wage, have enough spending power (for now) to create demand for products and services. The last couple of times we have seen 4-5% unemployment have been during periods of bogus booms, (the dot-com and the housing bubbles). Our kids will eventually think that 10% unemployment, or even 15%, is "good times", while the oversupply of labor ensures that wages will continue to stagnate, (or fall).

    We can adapt to the new realities, or pine away for the old economy. I think we're better off noodling out how to deal with the labor surplus than simply sitting around hoping to be struck by smokestack lightning.

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  • mnpat wrote...
    "And now - Best Actors in an Ongoing Political Drama"
    February 25, 2013 7:29 am
    And the winner...............the modern day MEDIA! Who else can provide so much B.S. and hype and not really inform the people with honest, factual, investigative reporting. Create a crisis, sell more stuff, and throw out more opinions.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • SeattleNative wrote...
    Instead of asking "who's hoarding the money"...
    February 25, 2013 9:29 am
    ...why not ask why Obama is pumping $24 BILLION per month into the banks in the first place? Could it be to prop up his failed economic and health care policies?
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Native...Obamacare doesn't kick in until 2014
    February 25, 2013 9:38 am
    Is it possibly a bit early to declare it a "failure"?
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • SeattleNative wrote...
    No, it's not too early at all
    February 25, 2013 1:12 pm
    There are businesses that are sitting on capital rather than investing in growth and hiring people in large part because of Obamacare. Meanwhile Wall Street is hoarding OUR (borrowed) money that Obama is pumping into their coffers to prop up his failed policies. That is, with what little work he does.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • CldWtrSrf wrote...
    Native...
    February 25, 2013 10:07 am
    It's more like 60-80 Billion a month. This doesn't have much to do with Obama's policies in general. It has to do with the Bankers paying off the politicians to sign us onto THEIR debt and get us on the hook for it. They are throwing this money at bad derivatives, trying to put off the collapse, but it is going to come down like a house of cards pretty soon just like they designed it to. The Bankers and that created this and the politicians that were bribed to sign us onto it should be tried for TREASON and when found guilty should be hung until dead.
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  • SeattleNative wrote...
    Whose policy is it?
    February 25, 2013 1:15 pm
    This is Obama's policy. It's his administration and nobody else. Without it, his sheep would realize just what an inept, unqualified, failure they elected.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • William Lawn wrote...
    Let us be blunt here
    February 25, 2013 9:16 pm
    A business hires when there is demand for its goods and services that would support the addition of those employees.

    They were hiring like crazy when taxes were a great deal higher than they are now.

    Republicans act like it is some philanthropic gesture.

    We lower taxes and regulations without the demand, they'll hire.

    No they will not.

    They'll hire when demand is there.

    It is really as simple as that.

    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Mavila wrote...
    A lot of the money is going...
    February 25, 2013 9:45 am
    to European banks that do business in the US. The banks that lend to small businesses - those businesses that are most likely to seek expansion and increased payrolls - aren't getting the money.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • DesertRez wrote...
    I am not going to expounds on pumping
    February 25, 2013 10:31 am
    But I am glad you guys are paying attention and discussing it. Don't forget the other aspect of the global economy...currency trading. As long as China continues to artificially keep the Yuan down, we can't compete. Corporate profits may be high, but they are hiring...in foreign countries! But that may not be accurate, since a lot of U.S. companies are not even U.S. companies anymore.

    Oh yeah and the sequestration....a joke.

    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • CldWtrSrf wrote...
    Correct DesertRez
    February 25, 2013 1:04 pm
    We have been involved in a Currency War for at least 1 1/2 years. Currency Wars almost always turn hot, first by proxy then full blown boots on the ground war. The U.S. Dollar is dying a slow death, but is in it's final death throws right now. Russia, China, India, Japan and Brazil (BRIC Nations), all huge economies in the World, have been signing agreements to trade using currency other than the U.S.D. When that really starts to take place it's all over. America has enjoyed it's prosperity for so long because we have been able to export Inflation, Inflation has actually been our largest export for decades. When that is no longer possible because countries don't buy our money to trade with each other or buy oil with, the gig is up.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • SeattleNative wrote...
    Currency manipulation
    February 25, 2013 1:17 pm
    And whose job is it to keep foreign countries in check?
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • mnpat wrote...
    Compliments of another news source
    February 25, 2013 10:46 am
    It was quite appropriate that the first lady joined the festivities for Sunday’s Academy Awards. It’s not just because Michelle Obama owes her continued residency in the White House in large part to the contributions and celebrity backers from the entertainment industry, but also because her husband’s administration is producing more dramas these days than Harvey Weinstein. As much as President Obama complains about “cable news” and as often as he shuns the press, Team Obama understands how to fill the void of the 24-hour news cycle. By cooking up dramatic-sounding deadlines, cliffs and crises, the president keeps Americans on the edge of their seats hoping that somehow true disaster can be averted. This helps the president stay in the news, look like a man of action and cast House Republicans in the role of villain. But the cliffs haven’t been so steep as we have been led to believe. Take this week’s crisis: Sequestration. We are told every day that on Friday the automatic decreases to automatic increases in federal spending will swing into place, forcing massive disruptions in federal functions and risking recession. But what will really happen on Friday? Not much of anything. Regardless of what you think of the automatic reductions, the money that is causing all of the caterwauling in Washington doesn’t get slurped out in one deep draught. Instead, the “sequester” will begin a small, slow steady reduction in funds.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • HLC wrote...
    The first lady could give an oscar to Obozo.
    February 25, 2013 11:35 am
    For The Worst Portrayal Of An American President.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • SeattleNative wrote...
    Cloward-Piven
    February 25, 2013 1:21 pm
    We're well on our way.

    Never let a good crisis go to waste.

    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
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