Sequester Pain - why not the administration

[SMOGZINN]

Nope, gut only. But to believe otherwise is to accept that the federal government's continuous growth has been not only essential, but at the bare minimum of what is really necessary.

Consider that we are borrowing more than a third of what we spend federally and are on a fairly continuous upward acceleration marked only by small and brief dips. Therefore, if it is true that the federal government's continuous growth has been not only essential, but at the bare minimum of what is really necessary, then we are all doomed in any case. Eventually the federal government will be consuming all our resources and still starving, unable to actually function properly.

Also, given that the federal government's share MUST come from the private sector, even if we can delay paying for today's spending, then if it is true that the federal government's continuous growth has been not only essential, but at the bare minimum of what is really necessary, the federal government must be the only such entity in our country. Perhaps it's better that it crash now, when it's a fourth of our GDP, than in two or three decades when it's more than half our GDP.

The government grows as a response to the peoples will for it to do more stuff. You wanted the government to protect your airports, so the TSA was born, you complained that it was not doing a good enough job, so it grew. You wanted government to do a better job of stopping illegal aliens, so the INS grew.
Now you want the government to cut back, but you don't want it to stop doing any of the things you have asked it to do. You can't even agree that it doesn't really need to give free tours of the White House. If you can't stand to be with out the least of the services for a limited time, how are you going to convince us that you can live with out the real services we provide?

 

[Craig234]

The effects of the sequestration are disproprtionately on lower-income Americans, and sadly, that's not only not a problem, but a good thing to many people.

It's an ugly split of the American people to try to 'balance the budget on the backs of the poor'. It can't be done, of course, but you can really hurt people in the attempt.

The sequestration is just 'nothing to worry about' to many people, who are not that affected by it. But it's a lot to worry about for people losing housing and food for kids.

For a more accurate picture with 100 examples of the cuts happening because of it, here's an article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...2996101.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular,sequester

It's just another step in the shift of wealth from the bottom to the top in our country.

 

[werepossum]

The government grows as a response to the peoples will for it to do more stuff. You wanted the government to protect your airports, so the TSA was born, you complained that it was not doing a good enough job, so it grew. You wanted government to do a better job of stopping illegal aliens, so the INS grew.
Now you want the government to cut back, but you don't want it to stop doing any of the things you have asked it to do. You can't even agree that it doesn't really need to give free tours of the White House. If you can't stand to be with out the least of the services for a limited time, how are you going to convince us that you can live with out the real services we provide?

Oh, I quite agree. We probably want more services than we are willing to fund. But it's also worth pointing out that government seldom really does the thing it's nominally supposed to do. The INS grew, but illegal immigration continues as strongly as ever. We started the Department of Education to improve our kids' educations, but our education system's results drop like, if not the proverbial rock, at least like winter leaves. We started the Department of Energy to improve our dependence on imported foreign oil, yet imported foreign oil is a bigger part of our consumption than ever. And I doubt that any of this is going to get any better until we crash completely.

I once had a coworker who was bitter about his government munitions plant being closed. A World War II era army plant, it had not manufactured munitions in several decades, had not stored munitions in about two decades. Its Army personnel had long been replaced by civilian hires who maintained crumbling buildings long devoid of any purpose, but as with all large organizations its existence had become its purpose. This is in a nutshell the difference between the public sector and the private sector. In the private sector, that universal tendency is far more effectively opposed.