Dana Milbank: Celebrating lowered expectations

Dana Milbank: Celebrating lowered expectations

click link for full article

snip from article

House freshmen have been on the job for almost exactly a year, and until now they've done little more than talk about cutting the national debt.

But on Wednesday morning, eight lawmakers finally decided to take action. They scheduled a "major announcement," invited the media and declared that they had a plan to reduce the deficit by — are you sitting down? — $1.435 million.

That amounts to a whopping less than 0.00001 percent of what the nation owes. Among budget analysts, the technical phrase for this is "chump change."

The lawmakers announced that they were returning unused portions of their office budgets in the hope that the money could help pay down the debt. And they were feeling mighty pleased with themselves.

"Now, I can hear the pundits saying, 'Oh, these freshmen, they're just grandstanding,'" said Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.. Now, why might a pundit say that? Well, maybe because Duncan delivered these words while posing before TV cameras and holding an 11-by-17 mock-up of a check with "taxpayer protection" written in the memo field. Upon completion of the grandstanding, they marched into the Capitol to deliver their "checks" to Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/dana-milbank/dana-milbank-celebrating-lowered-expectations/article_9089474e-7cf4-5b77-824b-d3eb19f976f2.html#ixzz1lhePcKsn