Sequestration Continued….

          For this week’s blog, I wanted to get back to the issue of sequestration.  This hot-button topic has both parties pointing fingers and essentially blaming the other for the budget cuts.  When looking at GOP and Democrat websites, I have seen basically the same exact articles, only the blame gets placed on the opposing party depending on what site you are on.  For example, the GOP.gov website explains the sequester in terms of the 3 things you should know, and those things are , “ 1) President Obama Proposed the Sequester…. 2) House Republicans took steps to replace President Obama's sequestration, passing bills on two separate occasions. Neither of which the Democratic-controlled Senate considered…. 3) No One Should be Talking About Raising Taxes on Americans with so much wasteful spending in Washington”.  [1]

            I thought this was interesting because I was under the impression that Republicans demanded the sequestration in return for giving the Obama administration the legal “wiggle room” to pay bondholders in the wake of the debt ceiling negotiations of 2011 as I discussed in last week’s post. I then stumbled upon a democratic perspective on democrats.org where Elizabeth Chan suggests, “Republicans continue to refuse to work with President Obama and Democrats to reach a balanced approach to reducing the deficit and averting the sequester. Their insistence on putting politics first has put our nation's military preparedness on the line and jeopardized the livelihood of the 800,000 Defense Department employees who now face furloughs—the consequences of which are already being felt across the country.” [2] 

            It seems as though the parties are campaigning more for the absolution of responsibility rather than the urgency for action.  With so many conflicting views and claims, I went to a relatively neutral source to try and sort out the mess.  What I found in an article on CNNMoney.com helped to put a non-partisan spin on the issue.  With respect to the blame game, the article appears to support my idea that too much time is being wasted on pointing the finger when it says, “Myth 1 - Obama is to blame for the spending cuts: No. In fact, both sides got behind the idea and time has been wasted playing the blame game.”[3]  The author goes on to state, “To make matters worse, agencies will have little discretion about what gets cut since the sequester mandates that the cuts be made by the same percentage to every non-exempt area. Efficient programs will be axed right along with bloated or duplicative ones.”[3] 

            Sequestration highlights many of the negative aspects of our two party system, but it is not only this issue that showcases how blame for a problem is unfortunately equally important to assign as the solution to it.  Congress had a year and a half to subvert the effects of these cuts, but was unable to find common ground, regardless of the formation of the “super committee”.  I then wonder, when the effects of the cuts really start being felt by Americans, will the parties expend more energy on righting the ship, or remain hindered by party allegiance. 

 

References

           

1.“About the Sequester – The Three Things You Need To Know.” GOP.gov n.p.,n.d.(accessed  7 March 2013) http://www.gop.gov/sequester/ Web.

 2. Chan, Elizabeth. “The GOP Sequester: Defenseless.”  www.democrats.org.  6 March 2013. (accessed 7 March 2013) http://www.democrats.org/news/blog/the_gop_sequester_defenseless. Web.

3. Sahadi, Jeanne. “4 myths about the spending cuts.” CNNMoney.com. 1 March 2013. (accessed 7 March 2013)

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/01/news/economy/spending-cuts/index.html?iid=article_sidebar. Web.