Brief "Sequestration" Thoughts
Just a quick note before I head off to class...
I advise against listening to politicians in Washington describing how "catastrophic" the budget cuts from sequestration are.
They aren't.
Yes, it's $85 billion in across the board spending cuts.
But, "across the board", the government spent $3.5 TRILLION last year. That means sequestration will cut LESS than 3 cents out of every dollar the government spent last year.
Do we really believe that there aren't three cents of waste in every dollar that government spends?
True, the "across-the-board" spending cuts aren't "across" the entire board, it ends up. Mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and such won't be affected. So, the $85 billion is spread over the significantly smaller $1.3 trillion in discretionary spending.
Which still isn't a whole lot. We're talking 7 or 8 cents of each dollar now. Still, is there really that little waste in government?
But, truth be told, it's not actually even that bad, numerically. The sequester doesn't actually cut spending from what we spent before. Instead, it "cuts" spending from what we were going to spend - and there are automatic increases that happen in the budget to adjust for things like inflation. In fact, these adjustments are so large that Forbes claims that, if you look at the 10 years coverd by the sequester, it's still an increase in spending.
So, we should live by the Hitchhiker's Guide motto: "Don't Panic".
The cuts (at least for this year) are small when considering the context of the budget as a whole. And they don't all happen on February 27th - which means we actually have more than just today to make a decision about what to do about them.
So, why are politicians telling horror stories?
To be very cynical, because they are, to a large degree, bullies. We all know that the politicians COULD cut 7 or 8 cents from every discretionary dollar with a minimal (or at least small) impact on services we receive from them. But, they REFUSE to do that, and instead threaten to cut the nearest, dearest, and most loved programs. They are, in effect, the child who goes on a hunger strike because their parents take the video games away - the only difference is that the child here is taking the PARENTS' food away.
I advise against listening to politicians in Washington describing how "catastrophic" the budget cuts from sequestration are.
They aren't.
Yes, it's $85 billion in across the board spending cuts.
But, "across the board", the government spent $3.5 TRILLION last year. That means sequestration will cut LESS than 3 cents out of every dollar the government spent last year.
Do we really believe that there aren't three cents of waste in every dollar that government spends?
True, the "across-the-board" spending cuts aren't "across" the entire board, it ends up. Mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and such won't be affected. So, the $85 billion is spread over the significantly smaller $1.3 trillion in discretionary spending.
Which still isn't a whole lot. We're talking 7 or 8 cents of each dollar now. Still, is there really that little waste in government?
But, truth be told, it's not actually even that bad, numerically. The sequester doesn't actually cut spending from what we spent before. Instead, it "cuts" spending from what we were going to spend - and there are automatic increases that happen in the budget to adjust for things like inflation. In fact, these adjustments are so large that Forbes claims that, if you look at the 10 years coverd by the sequester, it's still an increase in spending.
So, we should live by the Hitchhiker's Guide motto: "Don't Panic".
The cuts (at least for this year) are small when considering the context of the budget as a whole. And they don't all happen on February 27th - which means we actually have more than just today to make a decision about what to do about them.
So, why are politicians telling horror stories?
To be very cynical, because they are, to a large degree, bullies. We all know that the politicians COULD cut 7 or 8 cents from every discretionary dollar with a minimal (or at least small) impact on services we receive from them. But, they REFUSE to do that, and instead threaten to cut the nearest, dearest, and most loved programs. They are, in effect, the child who goes on a hunger strike because their parents take the video games away - the only difference is that the child here is taking the PARENTS' food away.