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The Spectacle Blog
The end of the world is upon us. Soon the federal government will start to increase its spending more slowly than originally planned. The numbers are terrifying. Spending will rise about $44 billion less this year due to sequestration, with future “cuts” bringing the total to $85 billion.
It is very difficult to see how our $15 trillion economy will survive this retrenchment, forcing government programs to make due on a more than $3.5 trillion federal budget. If this dangerous trend continues, federal spending will increase by $2 trillion over the next decade instead of $2 trillion.
By now it should be obvious that I am being sarcastic. But the media outrage about the sequester is wildly disproportionate to the numbers that are actually involved. We cannot seriously address Washington’s unfunded liabilities if non-cuts of this magnitude cannot even be contemplated.
Almost as precious as the media’s coverage of baby seals is the political class’ blame game. Let’s get real. In 2011, the president and Congress could not reach an agreement over deficit reduction. So they put together a “super committee,” made up of members of Congress, to try to come up with such an agreement.
Shock of shocks, these legislators still disagreed about how to reduce the deficit. Everyone involved knew the super committee was likely to fail from the beginning. That was the whole point of the sequester: a series of across-the-board spending cuts attacking both parties’ budget priorities. It was the only way the super committee approach was deemed to have a chance.
Yet it still failed and the two parties are still far apart on deficit reduction. In this sense, sequestration really does represent the least bad option to many Republicans and Democrats.
There are two legitimate objections to sequestration, one political and the other policy-oriented. Politically, Republicans will be handing Democrats something to blame for an economy that is slowing because of tax increases. In terms of policy, sequestration is not an ideal way to make budget choices and is particularly hard on defense spending for no good reason.
But if relatively modest budget reductions that have current law on their side can’t happen, then no real spending cuts can ever happen. And if entitlements and interest payments on the debt aren’t eventually dealt with, defense will keep getting squeezed.
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More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2013/03/01/sequester-the-horror
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Stan Redmond| 3.1.13 @ 12:59PM
The president needs a super-duper committee. Blue, yellow, and red ribbon committees.
I don't know how I will survive. I have baricaded my house and boarded up all the windows. I filled my bathtub with water. I am preparing to butcher my dogs and learning how to cook tree bark and dirt from a North Korean cook book in case government trucks don't replenish grocery store shelves. This is going to be worse than anything Mad Max could imagine.
Fiscal| 3.1.13 @ 5:08PM
Antle, like most of you, are really quite lazy when it comes to the sequester. It's a true statement that the amount of the sequester is small in relation to the total budget. But anyone half way intelligent knows that statement is ridiculous. Entitlements are not covered, and that is more than half of the budget. Interest on the debt is not covered. Congressional salaries and staff budgets are not covered. The only large budget item that is covered is the bloated defense budget. When you remove all of the non-covered items, you're talking about approximately 1/4th of the total budget. (These numbers are estimated because no one on either side of the argument wants us to know the truth). When you remove essential services, you're talking about 15% of the total budget. Now the impact of the sequester does become significant.
What I don't understand is the fact that the sequester will eventually hurt Republicans more than Democrats for a number of reasons. Most military spending and campaign funding is in Republican dominated areas. Republicans will also be blamed by most people because "fairness" seems important to the electorate.
Ironically, the budget problem is primarily Medicare, and neither side wants to cut it because they believe they will lose votes. Republicans will lose seniors (who mostly vote for them) and Democrats will be hurt in swing states. IMO, this is just dumb. We need to cut the budget in entitlements and defense....
W. James Antle III | 3.2.13 @ 12:09PM
Yes, some programs are going to be squeezed. But the top-line federal spending number is much more important to the economy as a whole. If entitlement spending isn't touched, you are going to see all other programs in the budget squeezed. They can be squeezed by sequestration or squeezed by rising interest payments on the debt, but they will be squeezed. Period.
The Only Good Democrat| 3.1.13 @ 9:36PM
Entitlements cannot be tackled. Obama ran a campaign on doing nothing and won. Maybe Obama should make some proposals, otherwise we will have to wait until 2014 and see if the Democratic Party is willing to trim the unsustainable or demagogue it again.
Third world countries should not worry so much about defense. We are into China for big money. Maybe they will protect us. What is going to happen to us will no doubt be pretty fair after all our billionaires move to Russia. We are going to get what we deserve, good and hard. Detroit here we come.