Add Sequestration to a Long List of Failures

With the passing of this 2019, two year budget agreement increasing the debt limit, Congress has once again kicked the debt can down the road. In 2011, Congress passed a bill that was supposed to rein in deficit spending. That bill called for reductions in spending tied to increases in the debt ceiling. A joint commission was supposed to find spending cuts of trillions over 10 years including defense and discretionary spending. Instead, we see a bill on the President’s desk today that increases spending $320,000,000,000. Our current annual deficit is over $1,000,000,000,000 and total debt over $22,000,000,000,000. Unfunded liabilities add another $100,000,000,000,000. (Put your weekly take home pay against these numbers.)

Here’s an incomplete recent history of failures to rein in deficit spending.

• Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control aka Gramm-Hollings-Rudman 1985 – Intended to “balance the budget”.
• Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1987 – amended Gramm-Hollings-Rudman and allowed for larger debt ceiling to pay for social programs. (So much for the ’85 bill!)
• Simpson-Bowles 2010 – Commission that spelled out critical changes in order to address debt. (Ignored)
• Budget Control Act (Sequestrations) 2011 – (Blew through set limits)

Expecting people, whose income and power is derived from spending other people’s money, to limit how much money they spend, is fruitless. A balanced budget amendment in our Constitution is not worth the paper it’s written on given the track record of these scoundrels ON BOTH SIDES. “Balance” can be achieved by increasing revenue and therefore, the spending can continue unabated. Rather, a strict limit on the size of the federal budget is needed. Currently Federal spending accounts for 22.5% of GDP. This is historically high and growing. Limiting the Federal budget to 18% of GDP forces officials to find ways to increase the overall economy if they want to spend more. No doubt, the language of such an amendment will have to be tight in order to have any chance of actually working. Without attention now to out-of-control spending, our very survival as a county is at risk.