Wonkbook: The facts have changed. Have the policies?

Wonkbook: The facts have changed. Have the policies? "The D.C. version is, when the facts change, you should change your policies. As a new report from the liberal Center for American Progress points out, the budget and economic facts have changed rather dramatically over the last few years. But the policies haven’t."

"Here are some of the facts that have changed since deficit-mania swept the town in 2010: We’ve enacted $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction. Health-care costs have slowed beyond our wildest hopes. Interest rates and inflation have remained low despite widespread predictions that deficits and aggressive monetary policy would drive them high. The economy has remained weak. Sequestration has taken effect. That’s a lot of change. Has anyone changed their policies since 2010? Even a little bit?"

"So with some of the urgency gone, did [Paul] Ryan ease up on the cuts to programs like Medicaid and food stamps? Of course not. He just got his budget to balance in 10 years instead of 30."

"The Obama administration hasn’t accepted discretion to make the sequester’s cuts less onerous. Democrats haven’t offered an alternative package of spending cuts they’re happier living with. In public, they’ve kept pursuing the exact kind of budget deals that led to sequestration in the first place, and in private, they’ve simply resigned themselves to a reality they once swore they’d never permit."