Politicians are howling with threats about how bad things will be if the sequester legislation actually goes into effect two days after this posting. I can’t possibly list all the threats, but they include layoffs of first responders, teachers, air traffic controllers, and homeland security screeners. The President has warned that the unemployment rate will increase and the economy will suffer. All of this hysteria is over a cut of 85 billion dollars out of an annual budget of about 3.6 trillion dollars. We are being warned that the government cannot possibly manage a slightly smaller budget without draconian reductions in essential programs and harm to the economy. The same politicians issued barely a squeak of protest about the impact on families when they passed legislation that included an increase of two percent withholding from paychecks for Social Security. It would seem our legislators think citizens can easily adjust family budgets to deal with having two percent less money in their paychecks while the government cannot possibly find two percent of spending that is nonessential or at least less essential.
Where did the sequester idea originate? There is an interesting back and forth going on between Bob Woodward of Watergate fame and the White House. Mr. Woodward writes in his book “The Price of Politics” that sequester proposal originated within the White House. He adds that President Obama and the soon-to-be Treasury Secretary Jack Lew incorrectly accused during the campaign that the sequester proposal originated from House Republicans.
The White House first disputed Mr. Woodward’s version, but it seems they have decided they can’t dispute the facts. They are still arguing against the additional charge that “Obama is moving the goal posts by requiring that additional revenues be part of a sequester substitute.” The White House protests this assessment by saying the President has always considered that additional taxes must be part of any negotiations on budget issues. I’d say I agree with the White House, because President Obama’s campaign speeches, and all of his speeches are campaign speeches, have always advocated more tax income is needed. The Republicans mention that more tax income was added by the bill that avoided the “fiscal cliff.” Mr. Obama must think that bill that he signed into law didn’t add enough taxes.
Politicians will always think raising taxes is preferable to reducing the growth of government. They will also think the optimum amount of money they can spend is the current amount plus some additional amount. A slight reduction is enough to cause them to act the way they are now acting.