Fighting on multiple fronts

Sarah Posner is not impressed by the latest faith-based-coalition effort to prevent lawmakers in Washington from sacrificing the nation's poor on the altar of deficit hawkery:

The reason why Democrats are losing, as [Harold] Meyerson and others have pointed out, is that they have relented to using the Republican Manual of Economic Destruction, which holds, essentially, that the national budget is just like your family's household budget and balancing it must become a national fetish, regardless of what the economists say; and budget cuts, not tax revenues, are essential for balancing the budget and thus jump-starting the economy. Luckily the Democrats haven't yet adopted the Alfred E. Newman approach to the consequences of a default.

Praying now that Congress won't cut programs for the poor is so far behind the curve that it's like asking that the genie be put back in the bottle -- the deficit hawk genie, which the Democrats have stupidly let out.