Target Fixation

Balloon Juice » Shorter Eric Cantor: Suck it up, Missouri!

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that if Congress passes an emergency spending bill to help Missouri's tornado victims, the extra money will have to be cut from somewhere else.

"If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental," Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. The term "pay-fors" is used by lawmakers to signal cuts or tax increases used to pay for new spending.

I've heard that fighter pilots have to beware of what's called "target fixation": they get so intensely focused on one thing, like a target they're firing at, that they literally fly into the ground. I think the GOP's got a bad case of it. They're so focused on spending cuts that they forget that there's a time to put that aside and get relief to victims of disasters without worrying about who to take money away from.