Sequestration too much in cuts?
In George Will’s recent February 2012 column, he indicated that the sequestration cuts, though a lot of money, are minor in relationship to the hugh increases in the expenditures of the Federal Government since 2008 and minor in relationship to the deficit position we are in. We whole heartedly agree with his view. Our deficit for just our most recent year FY2012 ended September 30, 2012 was $1.327 trillion. The sequestration cuts only $85 billion or 6.4% of that deficit. As you can see in the overview and tax sections of our website, the taxes the federal government takes in have are within 2% or $55 billion of those in 2008, making up $364 billion in increased taxes. Yet our decifit in FY 2012 is only 6% lower than that in FY2009. That is because expenditures have continued to increase tremendously in those 4 year. The areas where increases were over 20% from FY2008 have been in Medicare, Medicaid, Income Security, and Other. Sequestration will be painful but we have a whole lot more pain to suffer in order to balance the federal budget. We can do it ourselves or have others impose their wills on us as has happened with the Greeks and others. Lets move forward and tackle the next set of issues to resolve our federal budget problem.
