The Sequester

What is the sequester you may ask? The sequester is a group of cuts made towards federal spending that is set to take effect on March 1. These cuts are for the sole purpose of dragging our countries butt out of debt. Initially, as stated in The Washington Post article, “it was intended to serve as incentive for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (aka the “Supercommittee”) to come to a deal to cut $1.5 trillion over 10 years.” Unfortunately, the committee did not follow through with this plan and therefore, the sequester was not successfully avoided like it could have been. The cuts involved with the sequester are going to be split between our countries domestic and defense programs. This involves weapon purchases, base operations, construction work and much more. The rest affects payouts as in Social Security, Medicaid, etc. Not affected by the sequester are low -income programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, as seen in the Washington Post in a list of all exempt programs. Over the course of ten years, the plan is by putting the sequester into effect, we will cut 1.5 trillion off of our debt, which doesn’t seem like that much compared to the 16 trillion we currently owe.

The sequester is a dreadful topic for many Americans and as we speak, it is being protested by thousands. Even the president doesn’t want to see this program go in to affect and has been searching for alternatives for a while now. According to the 6 Questions and Answers About the Sequester article, “The sequester will mean such awful things because it forces agencies to cut indiscriminately, instead of simply stripping money from their overall budgets.” The law forces agency heads to cut the same amount from each of their programs. This means that different areas of an agency such as the FBI, that are extremely important to our countries well-being and safety will be cut financially and therefore cannot do their job as affectively. An example of this is our terrorist detecting unit. If they do not have the means to actively detect terrorists before they strike, America is in for some rough times here pretty soon.

As I have mentioned before, congress was allegedly planning on coming up with a way to avoid the sequester but did not end up doing so. There was, however a short-plan put in place recently, which was majorly encouraged by Obama. This can be seen in the CNN article when it states in the text, “Tuesday, Obama urged Congress to pass a short-term deal that puts off the cuts, allowing some breathing room for a long-term deficit reduction plan. But Obama said any deal should include more revenue from ending some tax breaks -- a stance that inflamed Republicans who already had to swallow a tax increase for top earners in the fiscal cliff deal.” Many people do not like the sequester because that believe that the government will take a hit to too many programs and our national defense will be majorly weakened because of it. The only real alternative however, is increasing taxes once again, but it is also stated in the CNN article that, “Americans do not support sacrificing real spending cuts for more tax hikes." It will be interesting to see what happens with the sequester. Along with many others, I fear that our country will only be put in a worse place because of it and the safety of our people will unfortunately be put in jeopardy.