The Rachel Maddow Show   |  February 20, 2013

Artificial budget crisis 'as stupid as it is simple'

Rachel Maddow compares the real, actual Cuban missile crisis with the utterly invented and unnecessary "sequester" crisis Congress volunteered to inflict on the American economy.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> in october 1962 , there was a standoff between the united states and the soviet union . the u.s. had spied on cuba , which was an ally of the soviet union , and had found that the soviets had put soef missile sites there. in 1962 , president kennedy informed the nation of his plan to create a blockade of u.s. ships around cuba to present more supplies for the missile sights from entering that country. the soviet leader , nikita khrushchev was none too happy about this and was not willing to give in to president kennedy 's demands to end the missile program in cuba . so in 1962 , the world waited to see what would happen. this was remembered as the cuban missile crisis for a reason -- it was a real crisis. we were on the brink of a nuclear war between two not just nuclear-armed countries, but two heavily nuclear-armed countries. the stakes could not have been higher. the adversaries could not have been more opposed. how was this going to end? luckily it did end. both leaders realized that enough was enough. high stakes apocalyptic danger at cross purposes , it was not funny. it was drama. it was frankly, trauma. flash forward 50 years to washington, d.c. today, and our contemporary version of what we call a crisis where the opposing parties live in the same neighborhoods. they have sworn loyalty to the same country. they sometimes even play golf together. and the stakes and consequences in the crisis, the ticking clock, the deadline, the whole thing is self-imposed and voluntary. nobody spied on anyone or portrayed anyone to set off this crisis. they just agreed ahead of time that we would have a crisis around now. it is as stupid as it is simple. it is totally made up and self-inflicted. and the solution it turns out is the easiest thing in the world, which of course means washington thinks it's impossible. that's ahead with