Much Ado About Nothing

The president is painting a picture of apocalypse if the sequestration is allowed to happen.  This is a strange change from November of 2011 when he announced that he would veto any bill that sought to prevent the automatic cuts.  Of course, these aren't even cuts.  The sequestration is actually $15 billion more spending than last year.  Preventing the sequestration would be $100 billion in more spending.  Strange, no?

This gets to the trick of Washington accounting.  All budgets are scheduled to grow year after year.  So, let us suppose that all budgets are automatically set to rise by 10% each year.  Thus, if the Pentagon is getting $600 billion this year, it will get $660 billion next year and $726 billion the year after that.  Instead, sequestration 'slashes' the budget 'to the bone' by only spending $630 billion next year and $693 billion the following year.  Oh, the humanity!  There are no cuts, only reductions in the rate of growth.

Here is an interesting note.  What if we didn't cut or increase but just spent the same as last year's budget.  Oh, there was no budget last year.  Or the year before that.  Or the year before that.  Okay, let's skip back to the 2008 budget.  Suppose we just spent that same budget for the last 5 years.  What would the deficit be today?  $279 billion, far below the trillon dollar deficit we have.  We are spending $800 billion more a year today than we were in 2008 and yet can't afford to 'cut' a mere $85 billion?  Really?

Government is greedy.  It wants all of your money.  It will continue to take your money and spend your money.  It will tell you that the world will be thrown into a Great Depression and the sky will fall if you force the government to cut back the way most people have been forced to cut back.  A reduction of 2.4% in its spending is unacceptable.  Even after Obama got his $600 billion tax hike in the Fiscal Cliff, he can't give up $85 billion in spending.  It's because he wants a 'balanced approach' that 'asks millionaires and billionaires' to pay more while government doesn't give up one thin dime.  Balance!