A crisis was “averted” Friday evening when leaders of Congress and President Obama compromised on an agreement to shave roughly 38.5 billion of the 2011 budget — a whopping 1 percent. Included with the agreement was a spending bill that will fund the government for about the next week. Both the compromise and the spending bill still have to be approved by the House and Senate.
The reason for the quotations above is that the shutdown was extremely unlikely to happen, despite what the media was saying.
It probably isn’t shocking to anyone that the media used the vague possibility of the government “shutting down” to attract viewers. News agencies played off the fear and uncertainty to keep the American public glued to their laptops and television screens. A veritable buffet of hypothetical situations were served a la carte, allowing us to chose whichever situations frightened us the most or simply load our plates with all of them.
To the media’s credit, if the government had shut down, it would indeed have been a crisis. It would have been unthinkable if military families or federal employees hadn’t been paid. But what the media really should have focused on was how likely a governmental shutdown actually was. The likelihood was less than the percentage cut of the budget.
Regardless of how much posturing was going on by politicians prior to a deal being brokered, a governmental shutdown would have been so politically damaging for everyone involved that it simply would not have happened. Yes, there was fiery rhetoric from Republicans, trying to appeal to their base by making bombastic claims about shredding government spending. There were aggressive statements made by Democrats, claiming Republicans were attempting to turn the debate into a social policy issue over Planned Parenthood. In the end, politicians did what was politically necessary: They compromised.
It is simply basic bargaining strategy. The NBA is going through a similar process right now. If a new collective bargaining agreement is not reached by the end of the summer, it is likely there won’t be a season next year (i.e. shutdown). There are reports that the players’ union and the owners are separated by large gulfs, particularly over the players’ salaries. Many teams are operating at heavy losses (i.e. deficits) because of the inflated salaries. Right now it would appear there won’t be an NBA season next year.
That will change as the summer approaches.
When individuals come to the bargaining table, they start with their most extreme demands. You don’t go to a Saturday market offering a thousand bucks for a leather wallet. Two opposite positions are laid out, and through negotiating you come to at least an acceptable, if not completely agreeable, outcome.
News agencies either failed to acknowledge this or simply chose not to.
They chose instead to focus on the visible players of the process, mainly President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House John Boehner. They noted down what these individuals were saying and how far apart their opinions and goals were. According to their statements, a deal was not likely.
But the easiest way for politicians to come to an agreement is to shirk responsibility in order to not appear to be kowtowing. It was not these individuals who formed the compromise. Rather, it was their underlings. The deal was really brokered by Reid’s chief of staff, David Krone; Obama’s legislative director, Rob Nabors and Boehner’s chief of staff, Barry Jackson. The media should have spent more time focusing on these individuals if they wanted to forecast how likely a shutdown was.
The deal did seem to come at the last possible moment — what the media dubbed “the eleventh hour.” And many people were rightfully upset that it took so long to develop. If my paycheck was predicated on a funded government, I would probably be more upset about the politicians bickering when my family’s livelihood depended on their decision. But again, these types of situations always tend to unfold this way. It’s like a game of “chicken,” seeing which politician will break away first. What almost always happens in the end is both swerve their cars away at the last second to avoid a head-on collision. This is exactly what happened Friday night.
Following the agreement, pundits eagerly looked to see who the “winners” and the “losers” of the agreement were. The sad reality is there really were no winners. Some people just didn’t lose as much as others. The government will continue to be funded for another week. Families dependent on the government will continue to be paid. Boehner looks like he won concessions from the Democrats. Obama and Reid look like flexible leaders.
The only real “loser” was the media itself, which devoted its time to predicting what would happen if a shutdown were to happen.
They would have been more useful examining what would happen if an asteroid collided with earth.