Brian4Liberty
01-18-2013, 08:08 PM
It seems that the House GOP has decided to separate the Debt ceiling from the automatic spending cuts that will take place on March 1st due to sequestration.
Is sequestration a good thing? It's supposed to be an automatic spending cut, and it's probably more of a cut than the Dems (or even the GOP establishment) would ever agree to. In other words, it sounds like our best bet.
Any budget wonks out there have any insight? Is this sequestration a good thing? Is it cutting from baseline, or is it cutting from built in increases? Is there any possibility that a deeper cut could ever be reached?
This is no government shutdown, it's just some budget cuts. The GOP should use the government shutdown as a starting position for negotiations (if the leadership had any balls).
This article talks about sequestration a bit:
The $1.2 trillion spending sequester was once hailed as a political win for Democrats and as a point of leverage for the White House in the fiscal-cliff negotiations. Republicans, however, now see the automatic spending cuts as a possible trump card as they prepare for a series of budget showdowns.
Congressional Republicans who are committed to reining in federal spending appear willing to let the sequester cuts begin to take effect this year. “Of all the things I’m pretty sure of in life, the sequester will happen,” says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Our team wants to see spending cuts.”
Cuts are scheduled to begin on March 1, following a two-month delay agreed to as part of the fiscal-cliff legislation orchestrated by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.). If implemented as planned, the sequester would cut about $100 billion from the federal budget in 2013.
Republican sentiment toward sequestration has shifted since the idea was included in the 2011 debt-ceiling agreement. Many GOP lawmakers still harbor deep concerns over the composition of the cuts, which would disproportionately fall on the defense budget. However, having acknowledged that the GOP alternatives to the sequester are unlikely to be approved by the Democratic Senate or signed into law by President Obama, Republicans seem prepared to accept enforceable spending cuts wherever they can get them.
It’s also an eleventh-hour strategy. House Republicans have already voted twice to replace the defense cuts with cuts to other portions of the federal budget. “Clearly, we don’t think the way the sequester is set up will be helpful to national security or the defense industry,” a House leadership aide says. “But we are committed to cutting spending in the federal government. So we’re not turning back on that.”
That view is widely shared by House conservatives. Representative Steve Scalise (R., La.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, would rather see the defense cuts replaced with domestic discretionary cuts but strongly opposes doing away with the sequester altogether. “At the end of the day, we need to make cuts,” he says. “And they have to be real cuts.”
Representative Paul Broun (R., Ga.), a former Marine Corps reservist and Navy officer, agrees, adding that his opposition to further defense cuts would not prevent him from supporting sequestration absent a better alternative. “I’m very unhappy, especially as a member of the military, that we’d be having any more defense cuts,” he says. “But if the sequestration does occur, then I’ll support those cuts. I think it’s necessary to make those real kinds of cuts, and then hopefully we can restore military spending and offset it with other spending cuts elsewhere.”
More:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337796/whos-afraid-sequestration-andrew-stiles
Is sequestration a good thing? It's supposed to be an automatic spending cut, and it's probably more of a cut than the Dems (or even the GOP establishment) would ever agree to. In other words, it sounds like our best bet.
Any budget wonks out there have any insight? Is this sequestration a good thing? Is it cutting from baseline, or is it cutting from built in increases? Is there any possibility that a deeper cut could ever be reached?
This is no government shutdown, it's just some budget cuts. The GOP should use the government shutdown as a starting position for negotiations (if the leadership had any balls).
This article talks about sequestration a bit:
The $1.2 trillion spending sequester was once hailed as a political win for Democrats and as a point of leverage for the White House in the fiscal-cliff negotiations. Republicans, however, now see the automatic spending cuts as a possible trump card as they prepare for a series of budget showdowns.
Congressional Republicans who are committed to reining in federal spending appear willing to let the sequester cuts begin to take effect this year. “Of all the things I’m pretty sure of in life, the sequester will happen,” says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Our team wants to see spending cuts.”
Cuts are scheduled to begin on March 1, following a two-month delay agreed to as part of the fiscal-cliff legislation orchestrated by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.). If implemented as planned, the sequester would cut about $100 billion from the federal budget in 2013.
Republican sentiment toward sequestration has shifted since the idea was included in the 2011 debt-ceiling agreement. Many GOP lawmakers still harbor deep concerns over the composition of the cuts, which would disproportionately fall on the defense budget. However, having acknowledged that the GOP alternatives to the sequester are unlikely to be approved by the Democratic Senate or signed into law by President Obama, Republicans seem prepared to accept enforceable spending cuts wherever they can get them.
It’s also an eleventh-hour strategy. House Republicans have already voted twice to replace the defense cuts with cuts to other portions of the federal budget. “Clearly, we don’t think the way the sequester is set up will be helpful to national security or the defense industry,” a House leadership aide says. “But we are committed to cutting spending in the federal government. So we’re not turning back on that.”
That view is widely shared by House conservatives. Representative Steve Scalise (R., La.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, would rather see the defense cuts replaced with domestic discretionary cuts but strongly opposes doing away with the sequester altogether. “At the end of the day, we need to make cuts,” he says. “And they have to be real cuts.”
Representative Paul Broun (R., Ga.), a former Marine Corps reservist and Navy officer, agrees, adding that his opposition to further defense cuts would not prevent him from supporting sequestration absent a better alternative. “I’m very unhappy, especially as a member of the military, that we’d be having any more defense cuts,” he says. “But if the sequestration does occur, then I’ll support those cuts. I think it’s necessary to make those real kinds of cuts, and then hopefully we can restore military spending and offset it with other spending cuts elsewhere.”
More:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337796/whos-afraid-sequestration-andrew-stiles