Friday, March 8, 2013

Sequestration hits, yet America endures


You may have been expecting doomsday if you believed the Obama administration’s shrill warnings about what would happen if the federal government underwent a 2 percent budget cut. But the sequester has taken effect, and the Republic has somehow survived.

Nearly everyone agrees that the sequester – an idea that originated in the White House – was not a good way to cut spending, and it has undoubtedly involved some tough cuts. But when the Democrats demanded yet another tax hike as their price for replacing the sequester with targeted cuts, any alternative path was closed.

The good news is that the Obama administration’s forecasts of sequester doom have been exposed as empty hype. America endures – even though numerous Central Valley families with plans to visit D.C. were disappointed when the President’s office, in a cynical publicity stunt, cancelled public tours of the White House and blamed the sequester. (Miraculously, Congress has found a way to continue offering public tours of the Capitol building.) 

The bad news is that the sequester doesn’t come close to erasing the federal government’s trillion-dollar deficits, its $16 trillion national debt, or the tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities weighing down our entitlement programs. This debt bomb will overwhelm the economy unless we begin balancing the budget. When House Republicans introduce our budget next week, you’ll see our plan to do that.

Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Senate is also expected to unveil a budget next week – its first in four years – that will surely include the Democrats’ usual mix of imaginary spending cuts and real tax hikes.

I urge you to take a good look at both plans and decide for yourselves which one is more likely to erase the deficit, make entitlements sustainable, and put America back on the path to prosperity.