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Uploaded: Thursday, February 28, 2013, 4:20 PM                                             

Streetwise: Sequester  

by Jessica Lipsky

Posted by C. R. Mudgeon, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Mar 1, 2013 at 5:25 pm

Mandie Rewcastle (third captioned photo above)has it right. The sequestration cuts are really only a fraction of what is needed. And she is correct that even with the cuts, total federal spending will still be up in 2013, versus 2013. Keep in mind that we are talking about cutting $85 billion, compared to an annual deficit that is in the range of $1,000 billion. And that is the deficit amount. The annual budget (including the large entitlement programs) is in excess of $3,000 billion (i.e., in excess of $3 trillion).

It is a fair comment to make that the cuts are only from the discretionary part of the federal budget. The approximate percentages that have been thrown out is that the cuts will amount to about 8% of the defense budget, and about 5% of the non-defense, discretionary budget. Nevertheless, it is still off of a base budget figure that is larger for 2013 than the actual spending level of 2012, so the "actual cut" level from 2012 will be lower. And does anyone really believe that there isn't that much waste in our government?

Don't believe the horror stories that are being tossed out by government figures who are trying to protect their kingdoms, queendoms, and "turf". It's the usual "budget chicken" game, where the first things you say you'll cut are (the federal equivalent of) police and fire protection....

There will undoubtedly be some level of pain felt by somebody, which will be exaggerated if the various federal departments, agencies, etc., make stupid cuts for political grandstanding purposes (some of which will no doubt occur). But it has to be done. We don't have the money to keep feeding the machine... And in the end the impact on important government functions will be barely perceptible.

Posted by C. R. Mudgeon, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Mar 1, 2013 at 5:28 pm

Oops, I have to correct a typo - in the second line of my above post, I meant to type "... total federal spending will still be up in 2013, versus 2012."

I wish it was possible to correct/edit a prior post!

Posted by Dave, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Mar 4, 2013 at 1:44 pm

Yeah, austerity will really work to improve our economy....Right.. Just look at the wonders that it has done for the economies in Greece and Great Britain.

Posted by Rick Pshaw, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Mar 4, 2013 at 3:36 pm

Jessica leads with, "... sequester, or across-the-board spending cuts that threaten economic growth, military readiness and jobs."

This is called Begging the Question and it's journalistically unethical, Jessica. It's REALLY unethical and you can do better.