If you missed Thursday’s Wall Street Journal editorial on defense sequestration, go back and read it. It’s as powerful a case as I’ve seen about the damage that mindless budget cutting will do to our nation’s defense. It also makes a powerful case that President Obama is being negligent for refusing to get together with concerned lawmakers to stop the deep slashes in defense spending that are due to begin in January. Instead, the president and Sen. Harry Reid are using the threat of sequestration to try to pressure Republicans into agreeing to tax increases.
Of course, the fault is not entirely the president’s. Hill Republicans also bear part of the blame, as the Journal notes, for accepting “the sequestration deal while leaving entitlements off the table, thus handing Mr. Obama more leverage.” That Republicans voted as they did last summer, despite the misgivings of many members, was understandable given that the federal government faced the threat of default if the budget ceiling wasn’t lifted—but nevertheless, the vote was a mistake and one that may come back to haunt the country.
The good news is it is not too late to prevent these devastating cuts from taking place—but to achieve anything we will need to break through the partisan gridlock. At this point, that looks like a long shot.
Harry Reid is right when saying the $1.2 trillion deal is fair. "It's a balanced approach to reduce the deficit that shares the pain as well as the responsibility." According to CBO (as quoted by WSJ) the deal is as follows: n n*42.6% comes from defense, which the GOP does not like. n n*57.3% comes from entitlement programs (14.8%; Social Security and Medicare are exempt [Note: they would be in Paul Ryan's budget too]) and nondefense discretionary programs (42.6%). The Dems naturally hate this part. Since the ENTIRE discretionary spending section apparently accounts for less than 700 billion, the impact on most government functions will be devastating. n nNow, what do you Republicans want? The choice last year was between vast defense budget cuts, or additional taxes on the rich. The GOP negotiators chose the latter. Maybe it wasn't the smartest decision in the world, but you cannot blame Barack Obama or Harry Reid for that. n n
Anthony Randazzo, Director of Economic Research for the Reason Foundation: n n"It’s disingenuous for Republicans to defend their ideologically-favored projects and then say to Democrats that their ideologically-favored projects should be cut. You have Democrats and Republicans with different frameworks on how they view the world. Defense and justice, fairness, etc. are viewed differently. You can’t tell Republicans they can’t stand against defense spending cuts, and the same is true for Democrats with regards to social programs. But it’s disingenuous for Republicans to tell Democrats cutting their programs won’t hurt the economy while they oppose cuts to the Defense Department."
The problem is thatt Obama engineered the sequestration on top of the on-budget defense cuts and shows no desire at all to prevent it–and the only assured cuts in this administration will be in the Pentagon. The over 1 trillion total cutting of the Defense Budget, decried by Panetta is perfectly fine with his boss, better, indeed, than the Republicans foiling a humbling of the imperialist American military by caving to Team O's fiscal policy. Whoever's interests are being served by the plan to decapitate American security assets, they sure don't live in this country.
besht200386p, n nIf the defense cuts are to be taken off the table, what Republican spending priorities would you sacrifice instead? Would you rather raise taxes on high earners, or would you rather cut the Medicare budget for seniors by hundreds of billions? n nGiven the current state of the economy, the best option would probably be None of the Above, i.e. just defer all cuts by twelve months.