Michael Reagan's Perspective: The Obama administration is warning America that if Superstorm Sequester makes landfall it will have a devastating impact on our way of life.
What’s more, Uncle Sam won’t be around to bail us out, because he claims to be the principle victim. Police officers and firefighters will be laid off. The Pentagon will lay off 800,000 workers. And air travelers will find themselves waiting for up to three hours for TSA agents to sexually harass them.
Actually, the three–hour wait could prove very useful. It will give Americans of all political persuasions plenty of time to research who their elected representatives are so they can ask them why cutting the growth in spending a mere 2 percent results in a national shutdown?
According to a recent Pew Research Center/USA Today poll, “After a series of fiscal crises over the past few years, the public is not expressing a particular sense of urgency over the pending March 1 sequester deadline.”
I think there is a simple explanation for this. Working Americans have already experienced a 2 percent cut in their paycheck and life went on.
Police officers didn’t stop policing. Teachers didn’t stop teaching. And TSA agents didn’t stop groping. Working Americans assume the federal government should be able to do the same.
As The Washington Examiner points out, the sequester means a cut of $85 billion from a total federal budget of $ 3.8 trillion, which works out to about 2 percent. And keep in mind, total spending will still be increased over last year even with the sequester.
When Americans learned of the payroll tax increase that reduced the size of their paychecks by the same 2 percent, they responded by cutting non–essentials. It was fewer trips to the coffee shop, bringing their lunch or cancelling HBO service. They didn’t stop paying the mortgage or making the car payment.
Yet the administration says a 2 percent reduction next year — which by the way, was the administration’s idea in the first place — must come from government services that are crucial to everyday life.
Why is this? Because the administration doesn’t want to cut spending by any percentage. So if it is forced to cut, the Obama administration will make the cuts in areas that punish the public the most.
This is not government leadership. This is government by tantrum.
If American workers, Democrat and Republican alike, can make a real 2 percent cut in their family budget and survive. The federal government can make a 2 percent cut in spending growth without throwing the entire nation into turmoil.
Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan. He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Read more reports from Michael Reagan — Click Here Now.