How is it that no matter how divergent the most crucial topics and interests of the day may be and despite their being completely independent of each other with disparate source all traveling their own paths that somehow they all appear to be closing in on a critical moment all of them almost in unison. The topics include but not be limited to such things as the budgetary sequestration, the Iranian nuclear situation with the related P5+1 talks, the continued strife from Mali to Afghanistan to Yemen and then some, and the fiscal crisis throughout much of the world with emphasis on the European Union and the United States. Where most of these subjects are covered with some lesser amounts of slant and bias, there is one from amongst them which has been the subject of pure and bold propaganda meant to obscure, mislead and demonize far more than any intent to truly inform, and that is the looming budget sequestration. The truth of this story is so much less and yet so completely different than most have been sold.
With March 1st fast approaching, the United States Media is playing up a deadline called the sequestration. My dictionary defines sequestration as 1) removal or separation, banishment or exile; 2) a withdrawal into seclusion, retirement; and lastly 3) the legal sequestering of property, confiscation or seizure. As usual the federal government is masking a simple action by labeling the simple forced reduction of the budget through an across the board uniform application of spending cuts with a seldom used word outside of legal or government discourse, namely sequestration. The imposition of the sequestration uniform spending cuts across all government spending is how this is being spun often leaving out completely or ignoring the facts that significantly higher cuts resulting from sequestration will be applied to military and Pentagon budgets. The really interesting item about the coming sequestration is the lies and propaganda being spread in order to magnify what should be only minor concerns into dreaded consequences which could conceivably destroy the fabric of our society. What is not being told is that the cuts will actually be less than four percent of total government spending over the next ten years. That simply means that the sequestration cuts are, as is almost always the case when our elected representatives in Washington speak of budget cuts, merely decreases in the amount that spending will be increased. Instead of telling us that even after the dread sequestration is applied the government will still spend more in 2013 than was spent in 2012 which was more than in 2011 and so on, they will just continue with he lies that the sequestration cuts are draconian. The only difference is the percentage of increase between 2013 spending from 2012 spending will be around five percent less than the percentage of increase between 2012 spending from 2011 spending. So, if they are spending more in 2013 than was spent in 2012, how is it that the claims are there will not be sufficient air traffic controllers, meals on wheels for homebound seniors, fewer teachers in the schools, reductions in the size of police and fire departments throughout the country and other high profile consequences of which most will never occur or be of any actual danger to safety or denial of assistance to those who rely on federal programs to provide care for them.
There is another disinformation about the sequestration which is being confirmed by most of the mainstream press and that is about who is to blame. The news coverage and press commentary and releases from the White House place the entirety of the blame on Congress. The next point of clarifications from these same sources is that they do not so much mean Congress as they mean the House of Representatives and not all of the members of the House of Representatives but the Republicans in the House of Representatives because they control the House of Representatives who are to blame. The truth is that the House of Representatives is partly to blame, both parties; and so is the Senate to blame in part, both parties; and lastly President Obama gave his blessings to the sequestration solution to the budget crisis and when it was enacted it was claimed to be the most brilliant and innovative budgetary solution ever conceived by the government in all of history. There will be those who will claim that the President cannot be to blame as he has not received a budget or any form of legislation addressing the budget needs which is what is going to force the implementation of the sequestration. Why, even the Senate has not had anything scheduled for discussions about budgetary plans or offers which would address the problems and avoid the implementation of the sequestration. Those comments while valid on face value do not reveal the truth of the matter. The House of Representatives has sent at the least three separate budget plans that would have avoided sequestration to the Senate. Once these bills were sent to the Senate they were never referred to committee nor were they scheduled for any discussions or votes on the floor of the Senate. The truth is they were simply shelved by Harry Reid and ignored completely. By avoiding even the idea of considering anything sent to the Senate by the House of Representatives and instead simply demanding the House of Representatives send the Senate a bill which they would find palatable, Senator Reid has absolved the President from needing to refuse anything proposed by the House of Representatives allowing President Obama to simply decry the lack of action by the Congress in addressing and avoiding the sequestration. After President Obama has complained about the lack of legislation coming out of Congress, then Senator Reid lays the blame on the Republican House of Representatives absolving the Democrat controlled Senate of any responsibility. Then the majority of the mainstream press, such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, et al echoes these comments while never following up with any comments which might be forthcoming from the Speaker of the House in defense of their efforts. The major news services and programs simply repeat the Democrat line that the Republicans are out to destroy the country. The saddest part of the lies told to the people is that even should the presumably undesirable sequestration be applied on this coming Friday, March 1, 2013, it will not bring on the catastrophic destruction of America as we know her, it might actually be a decent first step to curtailing the prolific spending habits of the federal government. This would be especially true when after the sequestration, if we should be so fortunate as to have such befall us, the country does not spiral out of control from too little government spending but actually we find that things improve. Who knows, maybe we will start to demand more sequestration style cuts as the new method of writing future budgets. Wouldn’t that be a concept, a new form of federal budgeting which cuts the rate of increase every year and even reaches the point where it actually shrinks spending and the size of government until it actually will fit within the limitations presumably dictated by the Constitution. I’m beginning to like this sequestration idea.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 