Last year Congress enacted the Budget Control Act of 2011
which, among other things, created a last-minute deal to raise the debt
ceiling. Part of the deal included tasking a ‘super committee’ with finding a
deficit-reduction plan by November, 2011. As an incentive, the debt ceiling
bill included a spending cuts measure to encourage the committee to move
quickly or face the self-imposed penalty of sequestration. Sequestration
involves across-the-board spending cuts which would cut the debt by $1.2
trillion in the 2012 and 2013 fiscal budgets. This bill was created in hopes of
solving the debt-ceiling crises once and for all.
But
sadly the success of the bill relies on bipartisan cooperation within Congress,
something that will not happen anytime soon. Since the super committee failed
to come up with a deficit-reduction plan last year, it’s up to Congressional
leaders to accomplish this feat by January, 2013. As the bickering in Congress
continues, the chance of sequestration occurring becomes more and more likely. If
sequestration were to go in effect, cuts would be made to Medicare, military
and intelligence agencies, education, and more. On November 14, 2011, Secretary
of Defense Leon Panetta wrote a letter to Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham
[1] explaining the ramifications of the full sequestration defense cuts. “Should
these cuts take place over the next 10 years,” he said, “the United States
would be left with its smallest ground force since World War II; the smallest
Navy since 1915; the smallest fighter force in the history of the Air Force;
and the smallest civilian work force in the Defense Department's history.” The
result of such cuts could be catastrophic.
But with such a huge national debt, what other
choices do we have but to cut spending? Some on the left propose that we lessen
the budget cuts by raising taxes. They maintain that the current tax rate is
too low, at least for the wealthy, and that by raising taxes the government
would be able to keep major programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, at
a functioning level. Opponents to this proposal, however, claim that raising
taxes would reduce the tax payer’s average disposable income and hamper the
already fragile economy. So basically, we’re all screwed no matter what we do.
The sequestration was meant to spur
Washington to make a compromise and solve the debt crises in a timely manner.
Now, it threatens to cause chaos. If you care about the wellbeing of our
country, then I suggest that you write a letter to your congressmen and senators
asking them to please hurry up before we lose all stability.
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