Molly Ball: “Perhaps, like approximately 80 percent of Americans, you disapprove of Congress. Beholding the nation’s capital, you are apt to see a sleazy, gridlocked mess, a Boschian hellscape of partisan acrimony and special-interest greed. Ever since Republicans won the House of Representatives in 2010, President Obama’s policy agenda has ground to a halt, and hopes of addressing the nation’s pressing issues through federal legislation have been dashed.”
“But the ironic thing is that, by virtue of its very do-nothingness, the do-nothing Congress got a big thing done. First, in the fiscal-cliff deal struck around the new year, wealthy Americans’ income-tax rates went up, a policy change long sought by the president and his party. Then, in March, the budget ax known as sequestration fell, chopping $1 trillion from federal spending over the next decade–a cherished goal for fiscal conservatives.”
“More revenue plus less spending equals a lower deficit. A much lower one.”
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