Tag: sequester

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Four Percent Off the Top

Suppose you get a 4 percent pay cut.

Suppose you can’t borrow; you can only reduce your spending. Your household budget includes rent, videos, food, saving for a rainy day, and a front-​door lock to replace the one destroyed when your home was broken into yesterday. What’s the first thing that pops into your head?

“Well! Better forget that lock!”? No.

Now suppose you head the executive branch of the federal government and want to entrench disastrously high spending. So you want to “prove” that even trivial budget cuts must produce blatant, instant pain. Then, for example, school kids en route to DC find that White House tours have been canceled. Then, for another example, airline passengers find that security delays at the airport drag on longer than ever.

Congress has tasked the Federal Aviation Administration with safely and efficiently directing airplanes on and off the tarmac. The sequester reduces the FAA’s budget by some 4 percent. What to do? What else but furlough controllers for one working day out of ten, inflicting delays in an estimated four of ten flights?

That’s what the Obama administration has done, even though many less destructive budgetary changes are not only possible, but far more preferable.

Much more than 4 percent must be cut from government spending. It won’t be painless. But the Obama administration, consulting a very old, very nasty “insider’s” playbook, seeks to “prove” that the only feasible way to even begin to reform is the least sensible way. False.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies too much government

Sequester Squeezes Solons

The deep, excruciating pain inflicted by the infamous sequester’s automatic $85 billion in spending cuts is beginning to crush the spirit of our glorious leaders.

Every stroke of the pen hurts, as congressional budgets are slashed a mindless 8.2 percent. The resultant chaos, we are told, presents a fatal threat to our survival as a nation.

A recent Washington Post exposé revealed more than a few of the budget-​cutting horrors:

  • Congressional offices are wantonly canceling magazine subscriptions. Magazines contain important facts desperately needed by those entrusted with governing every aspect of our existence. Denied essential reading material, national literacy levels could plummet.
  • Communication between congressional representatives and their constituents is being disrupted as offices increasingly respond through low cost e‑mail, instead of mailing through the more expensive U.S. Post Office.
  • Foreign junkets are also getting scrutinized. For instance, the congressional delegation sent to Rome to welcome the new pope dared the indignity of flying commercial.

It has gotten so bad that U.S. Rep. John Campbell (R‑Calif.) was forced to actually look into the phone bill paid by his congressional office. He found he could save $200 a month.

The sickening reality of budget cuts? They always hit our poor leaders hardest. But somehow, without magazines or lavish junkets, forced to use email and fly commercial and occasionally peruse a bill, our solons bravely carry on.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.