Possible Compromise?

            Recently, there has been widespread doubt over Congress’s ability to create a compromise before the sequester takes effect. After months of deliberation, Congress has yet to forge a plan to avoid falling off the fiscal cliff in January, 2013. This lack of progress had led to many people to begin to fear for the impending economic collapse that would ensue if the sequester goes into action. The sequester itself calls for massive government budget cuts all across the board. This drastic change in spending would create a huge ripple effect across all areas of the economy. Thus the panicking.

            However, recent comments by President Obama have restored faith in many people over Congress’s ability to compromise. During the Monday night debate, Obama stated that the sequester “will not happen." This bold comment has many speculators believing that a compromise is already in the works in Congress. Senator John McCain said, in response to Obama’s comment, "I was astonished, I almost fell out of my chair when the president said, 'Don't worry, sequestration won't happen.' We've been begging the president to sit down with us to avoid what his own secretary of defense said would be a devastating blow to our national security. He just said, 'Don't worry, sequestration won't happen.'” Now Obama has to live up to this huge promise.

            This claim came to most people as a huge surprise. Obama had recently been using the upcoming sequester as a bargaining chip on the expiring Bush Tax Cuts. Senator Lindsey Graham called out Obama after the debate, remarking that “He’s using sequestration as a bargaining chip on the Bush tax cuts expiring. If he wanted it not to happen he should have been leading weeks ago, months ago. We’ve been begging him to come up with a presidential leadership. Saying it’s not going to happen in a debate and not lifting a finger to prevent it for weeks and months is disingenuous.  I think it’s going to happen unless there is some leadership and the president has done nothing to lead on this issue. Tonight he dismissed it with one statement. For months and weeks he’s done nothing to fix the problem. It’s going to happen in January and he’s the commander in chief.”

            Hopefully Obama will go through with his promise because if he doesn’t then we are all screwed. If you ask many mayors and local lawmakers how the sequester could affect their states and towns, you’ll hear about cuts to education programs, infrastructure bonds, and food stamps for children. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a Democrat who is currently the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said the scheduled spending sequester will depress state and local budgets that rely on extra funding from the federal government to provide security, nutritional or other basic services to citizens. If Congress doesn’t come up with a solution, then we may be looking at huge problems both locally and nationally.