We all knew this would happen. The cuts made by the sequestration have started to be implemented and people are upset. There are three cuts that are getting a particularly heavy amount of news coverage: national parks, secret service, and defense.
The national park system has received a 5% cut to funding. This has resulted in less seasonal hires and plans on opening parks later in the year. The secret service has had to put staff members on furlough and no longer has enough people in place to allow public tours of the White House. The cuts to the Defense Department have led some branches of the military to stop funding tuition and housing aid for servicemen and veterans.
My response to this is pretty simple: what did you expect?
Our nation lives in a delusion. We believe we can have our cake and eat it too. Let me give you a healthy dose of reality - our financial situation is a joke.
Let me put it in easy to understand terms. We are spending more money on government programs than we are currently taking in on taxes. Think of it like this: the government makes $24 a day but spends $37 a day. It doesn't take a genius to realize that formula is unsustainable.
There are three solutions to this - and seriously, there are only three. You can spend less, you can make more, or you can do a little bit of both. That's it. You can't magically balance the budget by any other way.
Our government has decided that the way they are going to solve our problems is in part by spending less. So the sequestration cuts of a whopping $85 billion happened. That seems like a big number - and by all means, it is a lot of money. But in the context of the federal budget, it is a drop in the bucket. Using our numbers above, it is roughly $0.08. So now the government is only spending $36.92 a day. Hooray! We're saved!
Oh wait.
These "draconian cuts" have almost no effect on the greater picture of government expenditure and yet people complain.
Folks we have to face reality here. There needs to be some tough decisions made in the road ahead. Very few people look at the economy and think we need to tax more. Yet these sequestration cuts show that people don't want to give up the government benefits they are used to receiving. Bottom line is, the status quo can not be maintained much longer. We either tighten our belts now or face some serious consequences in the future.
There's another more sinister side to this situation, though. As I just showed, sequestration didn't actually cause large cuts to government expenditures. So why is it that we're feeling that substantial government programs are being cut?
This is a political ploy by those in power to stir the people against future cuts. By stopping tours of the White House, the Obama administration has chosen a very public example of government closure. Parks are remaining closed instead of limiting services. What they are trying to show us is that we need the government to maintain its level of expenditure. They could have chosen to cut other programs that would not have had such a public backlash. That would have been the responsible thing to do. Instead they want to be in your face about the cuts.
What concerns me is that these school yard bully techniques might actually work. Instead of stopping $250 million dollars being sent to Egypt, the Defense Department froze spending on tuition for vets which cost $310 million last year. Which would have been a more responsible cut, looking after our own citizens or paying a country whose people burn our flag and has no stability?
This isn't a right or left issue. We shouldn't be split across ideological lines. There are legitimate cuts that can be made that won't be painful. Down the road there will be cuts, or at least should be cuts, that will be more painful. But we need to start breeding a culture today of government fiscal responsibility. It should start by cutting unnecessary expenditures. The political ploys being played out in multiple sectors shouldn't deter us from the greater mission - reigning in out of control government spending.
I urge everyone to stay strong in the face of these stupid cuts. Pull back the curtain on these political maneuvers and see the truth behind the decisions being made.
We can't have our cake and eat it too.
No comments:
Post a Comment