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George Will

The manufactured crisis of sequester

The sequester has forced liberals to clarify their conviction that whatever the government’s size is at any moment, it is the bare minimum necessary to forestall intolerable suffering. At his unintentionally hilarious hysteria session Tuesday, Obama said: The sequester’s “meat-cleaver approach” of “severe,” “arbitrary” and “brutal” cuts will “eviscerate” education, energy and medical research spending. “And already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf.”

“Forced”? The Navy did indeed cite the sequester when delaying deployment of the USS Truman. In the high-stakes pressure campaign against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, U.S. policy has been to have two carriers in nearby waters. Yet the Navy is saying it cannot find cuts to programs or deployments less essential than the Truman deployment. The Navy’s participation in the political campaign to pressure Congress into unraveling the sequester is crude, obvious and shameful, and it should earn the Navy’s budget especially skeptical scrutiny by Congress. …

Because crises are government’s excuse for growing, liberalism’s motto is: Never let a crisis go unfabricated. But its promiscuous production of crises has made them boring.

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Police, firefighters, teachers, and librarians will be fired and schools, hospitals, and military bases will all be closed. There’s also bound to be some high profile bridge collapses too as all those crumbling roads and bridges that Obama has been droning out about since he was in junior high student government will certainly go unrememdied. The cool $6.5 bil to study orgamsmic function in gay sea lions though? That’s still on, baby.

Kataklysmic on February 23, 2013 at 8:10 PM

Even if the Ruling Class really does fire all the 1st responders and slash our military and make it hurt, all the tea party has to do is point out all the crap that the Ruling Class didn’t cut off. The American people will be so offended by the Ruling Class’ messed up priorities that it will fuel the tea party fire.

FloatingRock on February 23, 2013 at 8:24 PM

SNAFU, no non-essential union paper-shufflers under threat of layoff, just essential constitutionally-required public safety workers threatened.

Who is John Galt on February 23, 2013 at 8:31 PM

Only in DC thinking can a small decrease in the amount of increase of spending be a meat-cleaver approach and do all kinds of damage to the economy. It just defies reality.

supernova on February 23, 2013 at 8:32 PM

Forbes:

The $995 billion Sequester Cut Is Actually a $110 Billion Spending Increase

The Congressional Budget Office gives its baseline budget projections for fiscal years 2013 to 2023 in its February 5, 2013 Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023. Table 1-5 shows how the CBO incorporates the $55 billion per year in sequestered defense cuts and the $37 million per year in sequestered non-defense cuts into its projections of discretionary spending.

The sequester “cuts” are subtracted after increasing appropriations subject to the sequester at the rate of inflation and adding back in more than a trillion dollars (over ten years) of spending exempted from the sequester.

The sequester has been advertised as “cutting” discretionary spending over a ten year period by $995 billion. After inflation adjustments and exempting more than a trillion dollars of defense and non defense discretionary spending from the sequester, the CBO projects (in its Table 1.1) discretionary spending to increase by $110 billion over the decade. There is no actual $995 billion cut after the CBO applies its magic adjustments. Rather there is a $110 billion increase.

Sequester alarmists will respond that it is impossible to run the federal government without annual inflation adjustments and without exempting certain government spending. We American voters might respond that most of us do not receive automatic inflation adjustments to our earnings and we are expected to tighten our belts when times are tough and our personal debt has gotten out of control.

Whatever the case, it is hard to characterize a $110 billion increase as a draconian cut that will bring America and its federal government to its knees.

hepcat on February 23, 2013 at 8:39 PM

“Never let a crisis go to waste, even if you have to manufacture it yourself out of nothing.”

/President Choom’s Administration

RoadRunner on February 23, 2013 at 8:53 PM

Well,

Seems to me if they “have to first cut first responders” it only emphasizes that we are are own “first responders” and as such, should be equipped, including being sufficiently armed, for said times.

Now I have to go find some more ammo and perhaps another firearm or two and pick up another first aid kit.

ProfShadow on February 24, 2013 at 7:21 AM

Whenever you hear a ‘compromise’ that we will ‘settle later’ or that has a ‘time limit’ on it please translate that to: WE WANT A FUTURE CRISIS.

That is ALL that such ‘agreements’ and ‘compromises’ are about.

Really, if you can’t come to a real agreement then and there, then passing it to yourself a few months down the road isn’t going to help you all that much. Might get you elected but the problem will remain. Time start calling all the weasels as they are and tell them that they are acting like weasels, not citizens elected to do their damn job.

ajacksonian on February 24, 2013 at 7:23 AM