The great sequester panic
This year we are supposed to cut $85 billion from a $3.5 trillion budget. And it won’t even be that much. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government won’t be able to cut the full $85 billion. It will manage to cut only about half that in 2013.
As Yuval Levin of the journal National Affairs points out, even with the sequester, the federal government will spend a little more in 2013 than in 2012, $3.553 compared to $3.538 trillion. Welcome to the Age of Austerity.
Even with the sequester, nondefense discretionary spending will still be up almost 10 percent since 2008. Even with the sequester, federal spending is projected to be a robust 22.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2023. Even with the sequester, the debt will hit 100 percent of GDP just two years later than it would otherwise, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
It’s hard to see how a cut of a little more than $40 billion this year can possibly tank a $16 trillion economy. Or why keeping the deficit the same it is projected to be this year, at about $845 billion with the sequester cuts already accounted for, will be a shock too severe for the economy to take.
Blowback
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RePUBEicans and Dimmocrits.
This country is screwed royally.
HondaV65 on February 21, 2013 at 5:37 PM
Hype. Theater. Lies. Obama.
petefrt on February 21, 2013 at 5:55 PM
The era of governing is over.
forest on February 21, 2013 at 6:00 PM
The era of governing is over.
forest on February 21, 2013 at 6:00 PM
~~~~~
Yep…I’d say our government has collapsed. I’m with everyone who says the R’s no longer get my vote, merely for being an R.
ellifint on February 21, 2013 at 6:09 PM
U.S. government spends more than $11 billion a day.
The sequester = $44b = 4 FREAKING DAYS !!!
jake-the-goose on February 21, 2013 at 6:11 PM
Cut? You keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Fenris on February 21, 2013 at 6:28 PM
Isn’t that what you want to “start over”? Planes slamming into mountains and all that?
thebrokenrattle on February 21, 2013 at 6:41 PM
If we can’t cut a mere $40 billion from SPENDING INCREASES (not actual cuts from the baseline) in a single year out of a $1.2 TRILLION deficit, we are and truly arsed. Spending will NEVER be controlled.
wildcat72 on February 21, 2013 at 6:54 PM