Oh, the humanity!

You expect someone to say that at any moment.

I am, of course, speaking of the sequester. 

In a John Kerry-like moment, Obama was in favor of it until he wasn’t.  Obama proposed the sequester as part of the 2011 debt-ceiling deal.  Now he uses firefighters and cops as wallpaper as he exhorts the Republicans to settle on his terms and avoid the sequester altogether.

And what are his terms?  Well, no serious cuts – except to Defense – and more tax increases.

If memory serves me, he got his tax increases on the rich in the most recent fiscal cliff settlement, but only with the promise that he’d also come up with cuts in spending.  When the Republicans gave him another pass by postponing the sequester, in return for him delivering a budget before the new deadline, there was brief glimmer of hope that he might do the right thing at last. 

Yet here we are again.  And again.  And again. 

First, he hasn’t submitted any Federal budget to Congress and won’t.  He has no intention of making any other cuts.  Never did.  He’s putting the entire blame for the sequester on the Republicans, when he was the one who put forth the “devastating” cuts in spending in the first place.  Go figure. 

I am constantly amazed at how and why the press lets him get away with stuff like this.  If this were anybody else, they’d be all over him like white on rice.  They’d be hounding him at every press conference, looking for leaked e-mails, and going through his trash at night. 

But no.  He gets a pass.  As always. 

If anything, the press is happy to promote this hyperbolic nonsense.

Right now you’re hearing stories about what the sequester means.  Thousands of civilian Defense Department employees forced to take furloughs.  Cancellation of repairs on submarines.  Cut backs on our military readiness.  Increased unemployment.  Cuts in TSA staffing, so longer lines and delays at airport security.  A drop in our GDP.  Maybe even a plunge back into the depths of recession.  

What’s really going to happen?

Practically nothing. 

First, the sequester was supposed to cut $1.2 trillion over 10 years.  It was also supposed to start at the beginning of this year.  But didn’t.  So at most the cuts only affect a portion of the year and are prorated.  What was once a goal of $120 billion in cuts per year will only be about $85 billion for the remaining seven months.  (That’s about what we borrow every month.  And  pretty close to the unfunded $60 billion in pork-laden legislation Congress just passed to aid Sandy “victims.” ) 

Next, in the greater scheme of things, even the full $120 billion is a drop in the bucket, especially when you consider that Federal spending in 2011 was about $3.7 trillion.  Let’s put this in perspective:  $120 billion is no more than 3.2% of total annual Federal spending.  Even under the most optimistic projections, that’s just slowing the growth of spending, not really cutting spending.  It’s not even a rounding error when you’re talking about multi-trillion-dollar budgets

As to the “devastating” effects of the sequester – that’s where the crap really flies.  In a normal year under the sequester terms, we’re talking about cuts of 8% in the Defense budget, and 5% in domestic agency budgets. And exempted from those cuts are Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ programs. 

Honest to God, that’s what this is all about.  Relatively minor cuts to what most would agree are massively bloated operations.  It’s pocket change to the Feds. 

Even in the most extreme projections, we’d be going back to spending levels close to what they were a few years ago.  People didn’t starve in the streets then, we didn’t have foreign invaders storming our shores, entire cities didn’t burn down for lack of firefighters, airports didn’t shut down nor was there widespread anarchy. 

Spending has ballooned over the past six years, thanks in part to two wars and unconscionable spending by both Republicans and Democrats.  Not all of it has been justified; most was to curry favor with an ever-demanding voting public, and to reward political cronies.   We all know this. 

And now it’s nut-cutting time.  It’s not going to be that bad. 

There isn’t a business in the world that couldn’t cut its budget by 5% – it happens all the time; so why can’t domestic agencies?  As to the 8% Defense Department cuts … yes that’s going to take some work, and may close some superfluous bases here and abroad, and cancel some stupid Buck Rogers projects, but it is certainly do-able. 

For all the rabble-rousing about the sequester jeopardizing national security, border security, and airport safety, not to mention sacrificing the usual hostages – teachers, first responders, children and programs for the poor, elderly and disabled – most of it’s a bunch of BS. 

And most of it – as usual – is just politics.  Obama wants – at the last minute – to appear to be concerned about minimizing the “devastating” impact of the sequester as a means to get even more of his own agenda.

He’s now put forth a new plan to avoid the cuts – not a real budget, of course – just a “plan” that’s long on class warfare and overly optimistic on gains.  It includes a 30% minimum tax on millionaires – the so-called “Buffett Rule” – as well as  closing corporate loopholes, and changing the COLA formula for Federal benefits.  All told, Obama’s counting on $680 billion in new revenues over 10 years to offset the sequester.  His assumptions on spending savings are largely accounting legerdemain; look good on paper but somewhat unreal. 

As usual, the sequester is another in a long line of “crises” that really aren’t.  That’s not stopping the histrionics and public hand-wringing in the media, from Congress, from Governors and anyone else eager to see their face on TV for a 10-second sound bite. 

If you believe them all Hell’s going to break loose if the sequester isn’t averted.   

I’m just waiting for someone to say those three special words:

                “Oh, the humanity!”

I think both Republicans and Democrats want the sequester to go through for all the wrong reasons:  Republicans, because they think it might hurt Obama; Democrats, because they think it will hurt Republicans.  

They are both wrong.  It will hurt them both, not because the cuts are drastic, but because the American public is starting to understand the trouble we’re in and a majority support spending cuts.

And once again, the public is seeing how truly dysfunctional our government is.      

I only hope everyone remembers this in the next election cycle.