You made them do it. They’re angry about it. And if it happens
on Friday, they’ll punish you for it.
That’s the attitude around Washington. The “it” is the
sequestration of about $85 billion in federal spending imposed by
the 2011 Budget Control Act. The $85 billion in cuts will have to
be made in the remaining six months of FY 2013. About half will be
cut from the Defense Department, the rest spread among other
federal agencies. None of the cuts will affect overseas
“contingency operations” such as Afghanistan. And, of course,
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are exempt from cuts.
Our ravenous government isn’t used to having its constant
monetary feeding frenzy interrupted by even a single dollar in
reductions. So if sequestration happens, according to several
mouths of the many-headed monster Ted Nugent calls “Fedzilla,”
we’ll have to wait hours and hours for TSA to spend time in our
pants, kids will starve for lack of school lunches, meat shortages
will happen because federal inspectors won’t be able to work, FAA
air traffic controllers will be laid off, national parks will
close, and 800,000 partly-furloughed Pentagon workers will be
working French hours.
These are only some of the punishments Fedzilla has in store for
us. A hungry monster is not to be trifled with, says the beast and
its chef, Mr. Obama. He says you’ll be calling 911 and no help will
come because first responders won’t be on the job. (The fact that
they are paid by localities, not the feds, doesn’t deter Obama from
spinning this tall tale.)
Don’t believe it for a minute. These cuts — except for those in
the Pentagon, which I’ve written about many times before — are
entirely justified and long overdue. In fact, they’re far too small
to have any impact on federal spending and debt. This year, federal
spending will amount to about $3.7 trillion, increasing our debt by
about half that amount. A reduction of $85 billion amounts to less
than three-tenths of one percent of what the government would
otherwise spend. Fedzilla spills more than that every week.
I remain opposed to sequestration because of the impact it will
have on the defense and intelligence establishments. Half of the
total — about $43 billion — will come out of the Pentagon’s hide.
Instead of allowing the Pentagon — and the rest of the agencies —
to manage their money by moving it between accounts, the
Obama-congressional sequestration mandates cuts across the board.
Because of this, major weapon system contracts will be cut back or
canceled, the flow of new technologies defense depends on will be
interrupted, and the resulting mess will end up costing taxpayers
more in the long run for what could and should be bought now. And
the stuff that shouldn’t be bought at all — e.g., Navy Secretary
Ray Mabus’s incredibly wasteful “green energy” program that pays
hundreds of dollars for a gallon of algae-based fuel instead of
regular diesel fuel that could be bought for $3.20 a gallon — will
continue to be bought but at even higher prices.
Sequestration prevents money management and Congress isn’t going
to fix that before Friday. Obama wants the pain to be felt so that
spending can be restored. The only thing we can predict is that as
soon as sequestration happens, Congress will remain in crisis mode
trying to fix sequestration so that the pain is reduced.
The only way Obama will allow that to happen is if spending is
restored, minuscule cuts are imposed, and taxes are increased
again. The “balanced” approach he preaches is nothing of the sort.
When Obama says “balanced,” he means that more spending is paid for
by higher taxes. He won’t agree to spending cuts, so the only way
Congress can fix the problems created by sequestration is for
Republicans to surrender — again — on taxes and spending.
That, at least, is the current political wisdom. And it’s wrong.
If congressional Republicans try to fix the sequestration problem
now, they’ll lose the battle because they gave away their leverage
in January.
Last month, congressional Republicans kicked the federal
spending problem down the road until May, foregoing the debt
ceiling debate they should have insisted on. That means the
sequestration problem shouldn’t be dealt with until then, when they
regain their leverage.
It also means that they have more than two months to revise the
deeply-embedded political equation.
In the big debt ceiling “crisis” of 2011, Republicans played
Obama’s game, talking only about overall budget numbers rather than
focusing on the individual agencies and the wasteful programs that
they administer. By not focusing on the individual agencies’
wasteful programs, and by not speaking the truth on the necessity
of entitlement reform, Republicans were trapped on the wrong side
of both parts of the spending question.
No one who has any knowledge of the federal debt crisis can
dispute that the main drivers of our fiscal crisis are Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Between now and May, there’s no
possibility of repositioning the electorate in favor of entitlement
reform.
As Ronald Reagan said, a rising economic tide lifts us all. But
our economy is shrinking again. GDP shrank by 0.1 percent in the
last quarter of 2012. If we have another quarter of shrinkage,
economists will proclaim that we’re back in a recession. The
current wisdom says that the only way to prevent that is for
government spending to increase. That is false: growth comes from
the private sector, not the government. The more government taxes,
regulates, and spends, the less growth there will be.
There’s a huge amount of non-entitlement spending that could and
should be cut in May. It’s on these programs that Republicans
should focus in the next two months.
Right now, Republicans are still playing Obama’s game. They’re
talking about immigration reform and gun control. Some reports
indicate that deals are being made on both. No deals should be
made. It’s time to stop the train and get real spending cuts across
the board. There’s even a blueprint for it. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)
published his “Back
in Black” plan during the 2011 debt ceiling debate.
Coburn’s plan would eliminate duplicative government programs,
cut spending, and reform entitlements in a way that would save
about $9 trillion over the next decade.
To set up the May debate, Republicans should embrace Coburn’s
plan and make it their unflinching position. Why not make the
elimination of duplicative programs a starting point from which
they wouldn’t budge? But don’t stop there. For every duplicative
program, there’s another ten programs that do things the federal
government has no constitutional mandate to do. And then there’s
the waste. How much money is being poured into anti-global warming
nonsense like wind and solar energy that aren’t economically
feasible? Why not eliminate failed programs that continue because
no one has had the courage to try to shut them down?
As to the entitlement programs, why can’t the Republicans say
that at some point soon — be it in two years or twenty — Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid won’t be able to pay out their
benefits because there won’t be enough money coming in to sustain
them? Some people won’t care because they believe taxes can always
rise to satiate Fedzilla. But the truth — if it’s relentlessly
presented — will eventually sink in.
When they kicked the can down the road last month, Republicans
insisted that the Senate produce a budget to be negotiated with the
House. It won’t matter whether the Senate does or not, because the
only penalty for not having a Senate-passed budget is supposed to
be an end to congressional salary payments, which, under the 27thth
Amendment, is unconstitutional.
Republicans don’t need more “summit” meetings with Obama. They
don’t need more debates on taxes. What they need is the courage to
stop the gravy train. Unless and until they bring about a
government shutdown over spending, they can’t win any of these
debates. And they won’t because they lack the courage to risk a
shutdown.
At this point, congressional Republicans are irrelevant to the
debate. To regain any influence, they have to take the risks
inherent in a shutdown.
Photo: UPI
