The evil budget sequestration is just about upon us. If Congress and President Obama don’t act, there will be about $85 billion in automatic budget cuts. That $85 billion is about .5 percent of the overall $3.7 trillion budget. Those cuts would come out of a predicted $900 billion budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2013. So, if the sequester happens, we will still have an approximate $815 billion deficit. And, yet the sky is falling!
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood stood before the media throng last Thursday and said if the budget cuts happen, “It’s going to be very painful for the flying public.” Going through airport security lines will double. Airports will have to close at night. Smaller airports will have to close permanently. There is no way the Transportation Department can survive with an alleged $600 million budget cut.
President Obama, the one who proposed the budget sequester in the summer of 2011 during the negotiations to increase the debt ceiling limit, warned folks that first responders will lose their jobs if the sequester is allowed to happen. Let’s scare folks into thinking they will lose their police and fire. Of course, what Obama doesn’t say is that the federal government does not pay the salaries and benefits of your local police and fire responders. You pay them via your property taxes. They are local government employees paid by the local governments they serve. The federal government does not pay them. But, I digress from the overall lies, distortions, BS and propaganda dispensed by this administration and the Corrupt Mainstream Media that peddles the lies, distortions, BS and propaganda to scare you.
The whole world will collapse if the budget sequester is allowed to happen. The economy will tank. Hundreds of thousands will lose their jobs, maybe even millions! There is no way the U.S. economy can sustain a federal budget cut of $85 billion out of an overall federal budget of $3.7 trillion. We’re talking about one-half percent of budget cutting here, folks. And, it’s actually not even budget cutting. It is more like reducing the increase.
And then we have the president and his lackeys blaming the evil Republicans for the budget sequester. He especially did this during the third presidential debate. “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed” Obama said. “It is something that Congress proposed.”
It was his administration that came up with it. You don’t want to believe me? Well, perhaps you will believe famed Washington Post reporter and Editor Bob Woodward (he of Watergate and “All the President’s Men” fame). In his book, “The Price of Politics,” Woodward writes that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of then White House Budget Director Jack Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors. Woodward says that Obama personally approved of the sequester plan to bring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Woodward says this happened at 2:30 p.m. on July 27, 2011.
“We didn’t actually think it would be that hard to convince them to adopt the sequester,” Nabors said. “It really was the only thing we had. There were not a lot of other options left on the table.”
Now, as is typical of this White House, after blaming the Republicans for the sequester, White House press secretary Jay Carney finally accepted sequester paternity. He recently said, “As had been reported, it was an idea that the White House put forward.”
But, as typical of this White House, after Carney took credit for the Obama White House coming up with the sequester plan, it began blaming Republicans once again for the looming budget cuts that will destroy the country. You see, Obama wants higher taxes on the wealthy so that they pay “their fair share.”
Of course, this comes on the heels of the Fiscal Cliff that we avoided at the beginning of the year that increased taxes on those making more than $450,000 a year. Their tax rate went from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. And, it also comes on the heels of those making $1 million or more that now pay an ObamaCare surtax of 3.6 percent on top of the new 39.6 percent tax rate.
Before these tax increases took effect, the richest 2 percent already were paying about 75 percent of all the individual income tax revenue the government was generating. With the new tax increases, that will only go up. So, the wealthy are paying their fair share – by far. We don’t have a tax problem in this country, we have a spending problem. Programs will have to be cut – including defense. Entitlement programs of Social Security and Medicare will have to be revamped. Together, they are the single biggest drivers of the budget deficit. This country cannot, let me repeat: CANNOT, continue with trillion-dollar deficits or near trillion-dollar deficits.
While the annual budget deficits will fall below the trillion dollar mark the next few years, they are forecast to go back up over $1 trillion annually by the end of the decade. This country will crash and burn.
House Republicans cannot cave on the sequester cuts. The alternative, which I advocated last November, is to let Obama own it all. Republicans are looking at a plan that would allow the Obama administration to cut the $85 billion rather than automatic across-the-board cuts. Let, the Cabinet heads and agency heads cut the money where they see it best. That is what intelligent managers do, isn’t it? Look for ways to reduce a budget as best as possible?
But then Ray LaHood says that is impossible too. He claims that Cabinet secretaries don’t have the flexibility to make budget cuts. Hogwash. Politifact.com does say agency managers have discretion to cut programs as they see fit. And, sorry, but in a federal budget of $3.7 trillion, certainly $85 billion of that can be cut.
The main points to this sequester standoff is that we need budget cuts. Period. And it shows a lack of leadership in Washington. Remember, early on in his administration, then Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said to never let a good crisis go to waste. That is how this administration governs and operates. If there isn’t a crisis, then manufacture one. Cutting $85 billion is not a crisis – manufactured or otherwise. Continuing with trillion-dollar deficits is a crisis.
Folks, it comes down to this: If we cannot cut even ½ of 1 percent of the federal budget, then the game is up. If we are incapable of making any cuts, then this country will crash and burn under the heavy weight of its debt. Continually taxing the wealthy will not solve the problem. Regardless of all the lies, distortions, BS and propaganda this administration wants to peddle, with the help of course, of the Corrupt Mainstream Media.
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