Worried about the "balance"

Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic:

Obama has talked frequently about the need for both parties to make painful decisions (in the debt ceiling showdown) that hurt their constituencies or require compromising core values... But only one party seems to making those painful decisions right now – and, come to think of it, only one party has been making those decisions for quite a while.

In the late 1990s, it was a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who reduced deficits by signing off on the painful spending cuts. Then, a few years later, it was a Republican president, George W. Bush, who increased deficits largely by enacting massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Now it’s time to reduce the deficit and, well, it’s a Democratic president ready to embrace painful cuts again, all because Republicans refuse to consider new revenue and are willing (or at least willing to threaten) letting the country default on its debt.

Could the endgame turn out better than the skeptics realize? Sure. The spending cuts could be smaller or less worrisome than they seem now. The deal could include another payroll tax holiday or investment in public works, to boost the economy. The leaks could be part of a clever political strategy to showcase Republicans for the extremists that they are...

But it’s hard to hear the latest reports and not worry that Republicans have already won a great deal  – that, with or without a default crisis, this episode will produce some combination of large spending cuts and small (if any) tax increases that reduce deficits largely by hurting the people that depend upon government programs. If that happens, the result will not only be unbalanced. It will also be unjust.