LET'S HEAR IT FOR SEQUESTRATION!

Sequestration was never intended to be good fiscal policy. It was never intended to be policy, period. When Congress passed the Budget Control Act in 2011, they formed the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, more commonly known as the Super Committee, to cut nearly a trillion dollars from the federal budget. Sequestration – a fancy word for painful cuts to every area of the 2013 budget – was a failsafe in case Super Committee negotiations broke down.

The plan was simple: By passing sequestration into law, Congress was creating a deterrent against its own gridlock. The law was so unpalatable to both sides – Democrats wanting to avoid cuts to social programs, and Republicans wanting to safeguard defense spending – that theoretically, everyone would negotiate in good faith to avoid it. [1]

The Super Committee was a super failure, as probably was the intention.  They could barely agree on where people would sit at the table.

 

Under sequestration, an amount of money equal to the difference between the cap set in the Budget Resolution and the amount actually appropriated is "sequestered" by the Treasury and not handed over to the agencies to which it was originally appropriated by Congress. In theory, every agency has the same percentage of its appropriation withheld in order to take back the excessive spending on an "across the board" basis. However, Congress has chosen to exempt certain very large programs from the sequestration process (for example, Social Security and certain parts of the Defense budget), and the number of exempted programs has tended to increase over time -- which means that sequestration would have to take back gigantic shares of the budgets of the remaining programs in order to achieve the total cutbacks required, virtually crippling the activities of the unexempted programs. [2]

Congress, by setting up the Super Committee, absolved themselves, except for these 12, of having to make tough decisions on spending cuts with a huge election less than a year away.  I hate the expression ‘kick the can down the road’ but that is exactly what this committee did.  Now it’s time to pay the piper.  As things stand today, if Congress does nothing with less than 35 days until the end of the year, $1.2 TRILLION dollars will be cut automatically from the federal budget.  That’s about a 10% cut across the board.  All programs except Social Security and a few things on the Dept of Defense list will feel the cuts.  Now this SOUNDS like a lot, but….. we have until 2021 to realize this ‘cut’.

The entire REPUBLICAN PARTY campaigned on CUTTING SPENDING.   Well duh -  what is the flipping problem? 

The Bush era tax cuts will go.  And the FICA payroll tax will again be withheld from everyone’s salary.  Well, dudes and dudettes, guess what.  FICA is the ONLY funding source for Social Security and Medicare.  Zip, zero, nada has gone in to THAT for the last two years – and both Medicare and SSI have been on a slippery slope for a couple of decades.  These tax INCREASES can be fiddled with by Congress if they so desire, but Mr. Owebama has said he would veto anything that didn’t include raising taxes on the top 2% of wage earners, so we are probably at a Mexican standoff on that.  As an aside, those 2% of the vile, selfish ‘rich’ employ 40+% of the WORKING public.  When they have to pay more in tax on their earnings, in addition to meeting the requirements of Obamacare…. Well – please raise your hand if you think they will be hiring.  ....waiting...... waiting....... OK - Those with your hands in the air are either stupid or ignorant. (There IS a difference).

I WELCOME SEQUESTRATION!  Bring it!  It will do what our Congress is unable, incapable, and unwilling to do – and that is CUT FEDERAL SPENDING!

Elections have consequences.  OWEbama won.  It's HIS move - we do NOT have to start giving away the family silver because of it.  We ran on cutting spending.  If we sit real still and wait.... the spending cuts will be automatic. 

WHO IS GONNA BLINK FIRST.

[1]  http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/campaign/266883-fiscal-responsibility-not-sequestration-is-the-goal

[2]  http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/sequestration