‘Sequester reflects Washington’s ugly political deadlock’
Poor Americans will be the first to suffer from the looming sequester budget cuts, Margaret Bogenrief of ACM Partners told RT. The harsh budget cuts are set to begin in the US on Friday at midnight.
The deadlock between the Republicans and the Democrats in the US
Congress makes any kind of last-minute deal to avoid the sequester
nearly impossible. Starting on March 1, the austerity program will
cut $85 billion from the country’s budget by the end of the fiscal
year on September 30.
“The sequester is, in and of itself, clearly an inefficient
method for tackling deficit growth, existing instead a reflection
of the absolute and ugly political deadlock seizing DC,”
Bogenrief said. “Perhaps most incisively, the (threat of the)
sequester signals how absolutely unwilling Republicans are to
tackle the tax side of the cutting spending and increase tax, which
equals the decreased deficit part of the equation.”
“Instead, most members of the GOP publicly fighting the President
have already skipped ahead to thinking about the 2014 midterms,
when they’ll be held to task for seeming to be ‘soft’ on Obama and
the Democrats’ (and, really, reality’s) assertions that taxes must
be play a role in the compromise,” she continued.
“Instead, those up for re-election are concerned that, should
they compromise, even more extreme potential electoral candidates
will emerge post-sequester debate, claiming the incumbents went
‘soft,’ ergo winning the votes of the traditionally
more-conservative mid-term electorate watching these proceedings
closely. Obama, in turn, appears willing to wait out the
detractors, after having scored a resounding win last
November,” she concluded.
Bogenrief believes that Washington will eventually come to a
consensus, but not any time soon.
“Wait until April 15, the deadline for Congress to act, lest its
members wish to forfeit receiving taxpayer-funded paychecks,”
she explained
The budget cuts will be equally divided between defense and
non-defense, with education, public transport and social services
to be affected.
“The cuts that are set to hit March 1 will, inevitably as in all
things political and financial, hit the poor and disenfranchised,
while avoiding the deficit’s biggest drivers,” Bogenrief said.
“While $42.7 billion of the total $85 billion of cuts hits
discretionary defense spending (a mere decimal point in the United
States military industrial complex, which is currently paying down
hundreds of billions of dollars in interest incurred on debt used
to fund previous wars), the remaining $42.3 billion of cuts dig
into discretionary nondefense spending, Medicare, and other
mandatory spending."
“Even more relevantly, a significant portion of these cuts
(including those in defense) are set to hit specific geographical
areas dependent on both the defense department for employment and
other government and social programs, thereby making a consensus
even more difficult for lawmakers focused on serving only their
districts (after all, why would a Congressperson from Nevada tackle
a politically contentious issue or fight to score a win for the
constituents of Alabama?),” she said.
“Eventually, the United States must learn, no matter how
painfully, that to spend much revenue, much revenue must be taken
in. And there are only so many social programs and schools
and communities that can take a hit until the larger (taxation)
problems are forced to the forefront and, hopefully,
addressed,” she added.
The current crisis stems from a 2011 clash over raising the debt
ceiling , during which time US lawmakers agreed that automatic cuts
could take effect if Republicans and Democrats failed to come to
terms on a tax and spending package.
