Sequestration: A Conservative Victory?

Recently, several conservative political commentators have written opinion pieces for the website Politico where they argue that the coming sequestration is good for both the US and the Republican Party.  Rich Lowry, editor at National Review, argued in a piece called “The Great Sequestration Panic” that warnings about the consequences of sequestration are overblown and being used by the Whitehouse as scare tactics.  Another column, entitled “Sequestration: Good for US and GOP” (by David Avella, president of the conservative group GOPAC) claims that sequestration will have a positive effect on the US, and will help Republicans in the next election. 

The arguments presented in these columns boils down to the fact that the US has a large debt, and sequestration is going to cut spending.  Lowry in particular throws around a lot of figures to try to show that sequestration will not have a large impact on the economy, at one point saying that “It’s hard to see how a cut of a little more than $40 billion this year can possibly tank a $16 trillion economy”.  (Of course, if the cuts are so insignificant it begs the question of why the fight over sequestration is bringing Washington, D.C. to a standstill).  Avella, meanwhile, claims that the reason the economy is still in such poor shape is because businesses are worried about the national debt and if we could reduce the debt, or at least the deficit spending, the economy will rebound and Republicans will sweep the midterm elections. 

            Of course, what these commentators miss is the fact that the reason sequestration is damaging is not because of the size of the sequester compared to the overall budget, but the way the sequestration will be implemented.  The US budget could most likely handle these reductions if the cuts were done in a targeted, balanced approach.  The upcoming sequestration, however, uses an across-the-board method of cutting without consideration of what these cuts will do to already-underfunded government programs.  Avella also does not take into consideration that the reason that Washington has been spending so much money is to help the economy recover.  Deficit spending is oftentimes necessary when facing an economic downturn, as the money the government pumps in to the economy helps put more people to work.  And as more people re-enter the work force and see wages rise, the increased tax revenue naturally eliminates the deficits.   

               While reading these columns, I was reminded of an article by Conor Friedersdorf that ran in The Atlantic.  Titled “How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File”, Friedersdorf talked about how, during the 2012 election, many conservative commentators offered analyses that supported their ideological position, rather than based purely on available facts.  This happened to such an extent that many people who got their news from only conservative sources were genuinely surprised when Mitt Romney lost.  I think that the conservative commentators who have been opining on the upcoming sequestration have not learned any lessons from the 2012 election if they really think that sequestration will be good for the US and help Republicans in the next election. 

Works Cited

Avella, David. "Sequestration: Good for US and GOP." POLITICO. N.p., 28 Feb. 2013. Web.

Friedersdorf, Conor. "How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File." The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group, 7 Nov. 2012. Web.

Lowry, Rich. "The Great Sequester Panic." POLITICO. N.p., 21 Feb. 2013. Web.