For some reason, I engage in dialogues on a college alumni message board that include wingnuts. Trying to get a straight answer or real dialogue is marginally better than beating my head against the wall. I do it though, because of the belief that there are lurkers who read it and may learn some of the facts that I present.
Below is a recent exchange:
Tom: [Upper West] CONTINUES to forget that this President suggested the Sequester, as a counter proposal to a GOP proposal to modify Social Security entitlements.
As stated previously, this President rarely lets the constitution dissuade him from his plan.
Upper West: Tom: Do you deny that the sequester was the result of the Republicans' threat to default in the summer of 2011?
Tom: Using that logic, I COULD argue that the Sequester was a direct result of Obama’s election… in Nov 2008.
Unlike you, I’m not dishonest enough to CONTINUE to argue that correlation means causation.
Upper West: Actually, we're both right, Tom.
There is no better example of cause and (immediate) effect than the Republicans' threat to default the US and Obama's agreement to the sequester. Just search the stories about it at the time.
And you can also make the argument that Obama's 2008 election caused the sequester, because the Republicans' reaction to the election made them so reckless that they were willing to default the US for the first time. (1) (2) (3)
I totally agree that correlation doesn't always mean causation, unless there is other evidence that it does, as there is in the case of the sequester. Before you call me dishonest, you should be sure that our argument contains no evidence of causation.
True or false: but for the default threat in the summer of 2011, would there have been a sequester?
(1) Of course, using this logic, the real culprit for the sequester is Monica Lewinsky. Her blabbing to Linda Tripp and the resulting impeachment damaged Gore's candidacy (e.g., Clinton hardly campaigned for him because of Lewinsky). Because Bush was elected, the Clinton surplus was turned into a deficit, and the debt ballooned (unpaid for tax cuts, wars, etc.). Also Bush's lax regulation helped create the financial crisis and the Great Recession, which is another main driver of the increasing debt. The recession helped elect Obama, which drove the Republicans nuts and made them threaten to default by not raising the debt ceiling. Obama then chose the lesser of two evils (worldwide economic catastrophe versus the sequester).
(2) Then again, maybe the real culprit is Nixon, for being a crook, leading to the creation of the independent counsel's office, which Paula Jones lawyer Ken Starr used to sniff around until he found Lewinsky.
(3) Then again, maybe it was Nixon's dog Checkers, whose presence in the 1952 "Checkers" speech saved Nixon's VP nomination, thereby enabling him to eventually become President.