Posted by Tina
The sequester, an $85 billion dollar dip in increased spending, will happen on Friday unless the House, Senate, and President can come to agreement on an alternative plan. I don’t mean to smirk but even if they managed to come together and agree to paste some crazy alternate plan together at the last second nothing of significance is going to happen. Again, I don’t mean to smirk but the President, who first conceived of this plan that everyone agreed to, is blasting the airwaves with the usual sky is falling scare tactics…cuts in education, cuts in defense, cuts in air traffic control, meat inspections…cuts, cuts, cuts!
The House has passed an alternative bill that allows department heads to decide how reduced spending increases will be spent. The President doesn’t want to give them this power. Democrats in the Senate have managed to pass a bill in committee…stay tuned.
The President has been all over TV claiming the Republicans conceived of this plan. It was actually budget director, Jack Lew, who came up with the politically charged scheme.
Jay Nordlinger at <a href=”http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/341407/crazy-vehicle-c-jay-nordlinger”>National Review</a> quotes Defense Secretary Leon Panetta who in May of 2012 said that sequestration was a “crazy vehicle” that was supposed to force the Congress to act.
Sequestration does not result in real cuts to departmental budgets! Sequestration is a political penny on the dollar scheme that <em>decreases</em> the amount the government will <em>increase spending<em> going forward. That’s right, this is worth repeating: <strong>spending will increase under sequestration but the amount of increase will be cut by $85 billion</strong>. Unfortunately the military will take the biggest hit, $43 billion, unless sequestration is replaced with an alternate plan.
Most Americans won’t even notice if the sequestration takes place. Life will go on as usual. As for me, Friday can’t come soon enough so we can move on to the next “crisis” brought to us by the dysfunctional federal government under the failing leadership of the crisis centered Barack H. Obama.