3 Lessons From the Sequestration Fight  President Obama and the
GOP need a long-term plan to reduce the deficit in a targeted,
prioritized way.   There's an old opening we speechwriters like
to use, and it goes like this: So I'm sitting on a plane, and
the pilot says over the intercom: "I have some good news and
some bad news. The bad news is that we are terribly lost. I have
no idea where we are. The good news is we have a strong
tailwind. In other words, we don't know where we are going, but
we're getting there awfully fast."  The sequester fight was
similar—heading nowhere fast. Let's take a look at three things
that did become clear by the end of that long, difficult ordeal:
"Firemen first" doesn't work anymore. For years, when big
government supporters faced the possibility of spending cuts,
they'd close down the firehouse first in an attempt to stop all
spending cuts. Laying off teachers will come next, they'd say,
and then cutting aid to disabled kids, instead of prioritizing
important programs and el