By Amber QalagariColumnist
Forget Dec. 21, 2012; the new date for the end of the world is Mar. 1, 2013, according to President Obama. The sequester, which will barely trim government spending, is being described by the liberal, Obama-supporting media as worse than an apocalypse.
What does this seemingly terrible proposition by House Republicans entail? Cutting $85 billion from a $4 trillion budget, or in simpler terms, cutting two percent. Republicans want to lower the $16.8 trillion debt to $16.7 trillion. That’s cutting two to three cents off of every dollar we spend, or eliminating 10 days from 365 days worth of government spending.
If we can’t cut out two percent of our spending, we have a major ideological problem at hand. We as a nation want it all. We want big government with elaborate entitlements, but we don’t want increased taxes. We can no longer use the Obama method of putting it all on credit; our credit card to China has long been maxed out.
If you are in major debt, you cut up the credit cards you have; you don’t open up another one. The House is merely trying to slim down the spending, and Obama won’t have it. What he is really concerned with is the chance that he will not get another pay raise or the new set of golf clubs he’s been eyeing.
Due to the illogical accounting method and baseline budgeting, the federal government’s budget will increase next year. So even if the sequester goes through, the government will still spend more than they did last year. Only in Washington is spending $15 billion more considered a “cut.”
Cutting $85 billion from a $4 trillion budget translates to Obama as more plane crashes because of a lack of air traffic controllers, a revert to one-room schoolhouses because education cuts will remove teachers and a country set aflame and bursting with crime due to a lack of firemen and policemen.
What he would like you to believe is that the sequester would cut essential jobs from our economy. In reality, these cuts will eliminate waste in companies. There are so many high-paying, nonessential jobs that only add to our debt. I don’t know about you, but I’m done borrowing money from other countries to pay for someone to surf the Internet at work.
America has two options in fixing its debt problem. Either we let the sequestration go through to start eliminating our debt, or we significantly raise taxes to pay for our spending. It’s time for President Obama to stop pretending like the problem doesn’t exist by choosing the “neither” option. The more we continue on this path to spending money that isn’t ours, the more Greece’s economy will start to look like a step up from our own.