I think the idea is for New Hampshire's local newspapers to
republish these columns as op-eds. I haven't seen any evidence
that's happened with this one. Maybe too embarrassing?
This is chapter 12 of "The Sky is Falling," authored by Democrats in
the House and Senate who opposed the 2011 Budget Control Act and the
threat of the sequester it brought about.
They warned that the economy would falter if the sequester came to
pass.
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No, it's not you. Carol's opening doesn't make a lot of sense.
The "sky is falling" reference
is apparently meant to remind us of the tale of
Chicken Little,
who became convinced that the sky was falling when an acorn fell
on her head.
Chicken Little went on to sow hysterical panic among her avian friends
creatures. In some versions, their unreasoning fear leads them
to their gory doom.
Did Carol really mean to cast herself and her fellow Democrats in the role
of Chicken Little? No, probably not. Still…
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The Republicans, who hold the majority in the House, warned that the
economy would fall if America did not pass a dramatic austerity program.
Their tea party members refused to raise the debt ceiling unless there
were what they considered to be appropriate cuts to spending and what
Democrats considered to be draconian cuts to spending. As America hung
on the verge of default, and the tea party in the Republican Caucus
refused to yield, the Democratic majority in the Senate and President
Obama agreed to the Budget Control Act.
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Carol's a Democrat, and it's to be expected that her retelling of
history casts Republicans (especially the Tea Party variety)
as the uncompromising villainous side. You will not learn from Carol that
(a) the sequester gimmick was originally proposed by the
Obama Administration; (b) the Democrats were at least equally
uncompromising on their desire to raise taxes.
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The deal was that there would be a supercommittee that would find the
spending cuts, but if they could not compromise, the deep cuts would be
spread equally between defense and domestic programs. Everyone just
knew, was positive that the unthinkable would never happen, that
Republicans would blink on defense and Democrats would blink on drastic
cuts to everything else, and that there would be compromise.
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Carol fudges when she implies that the supercommittee's task was
merely to "find the spending cuts". They were also empowered to
propose tax hikes. In fact, the Democratic members insisted
on them, and the supercommittee foundered on that issue.
As far as "everyone just knew":
It's worth pointing out that Keith Hennessey
(among other realists)
considered the failure of the supercommittee to be a likely
outcome
back when the
Budget Control Act was passed.
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But there
wasn't, and now the sky might actually fall right on our nation's
economic recovery.
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Carol doubles down on the Chicken Little allusion. She clearly
doesn't remember the story very well.
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Last quarter is the first time the nation's economy has shrunk in almost
40 months, and the reason is the impending sequester with its deep and
irrational cuts that require layoffs, slow downs and freezes.
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Carol's assertion that upcoming hypothetical "cuts" in Federal spending
caused GDP shrinkage in 2012q4 is fantasy. (And, given that she
actually wields a considerable amount of power, it's a dangerous
fantasy.)
Actually, the 0.1% GDP drop was mainly explainable
by a significant
decrease in defense spending. Which (in turn) was largely relative
to the significant use-or-lose increase in 2012q3 spending.
Government spending on goods and services
gets counted automatically into GDP, no matter how foolish
or unsustainable it is. The private economy (as Larry
Kudlow noted) actually did pretty well in 2012q4.
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When you demand that the federal government spend at least 9 percent
less across-the-board this year, and you don't even have specific
targets, you will have a lot of unintended and unwelcome consequences,
ranging from defense to medical research to education to transportation
programs, etc. Those politicians who kept insisting that the government
does not create jobs now have to watch their friends, family and
constituents who work for the government or rely on federal contracts
face lay offs, and they will see companies lose business and profits.
The consequences of deep cuts are upon us.
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It would be nice if "deep cuts" were actually happening. But
a more realistic description is that the sequester cuts
spending from a "baseline" where spending had automatic
baked-in increases.
Carol's correct that the sequester is a blunt, dumb tool.
There is (however) no evidence that Democrats are willing
to cooperate in finding "specific targets" for spending
reductions—they keep insisting on sneaking in
tax increases to add on to the ones passed merely a few months back.
And they have zero proposals for entitlement reform.
Until that changes, a blunt tool is the best one we've got.
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The Defense Department has been sounding the alarm more than other
departments. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has been going before
Congress - the very ones who created this mess -
[…]
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As noted above, the sequester was originally proposed by the
the Obama Administration. And it's only been a few months
since Obama promised to veto
any effort to defray defense cuts.
But you won't hear about that from Carol.
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talking about the damage the sequester will do. In a letter to Sen. John
McCain, the ranking member of the United States Senate Committee on
Armed Services, Panetta wrote, "Such a large cut, applied in this
indiscriminate manner, would render most of our ship and construction
projects unexecutable - you cannot buy three quarters of a ship or a
building - and seriously damage other modernization efforts. We would
also be forced to separate many of our civilian personnel involuntarily,
and, because the reduction would be imposed so quickly, we would almost
certainly have to furlough civilians in order to meet the target."
Panetta also says this would "seriously damage readiness." What he is
talking about is national security and jobs. Is anyone listening yet?
Everyone knows there are savings to be had in the Department of Defense,
but we should target those cuts so we do not jeopardize security or
jobs. While Panetta is warning the country about our national security,
the sequester is threatening other programs and jobs. We need to stop
this impending sequestration.
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As Michael
Tanner notes, while (non-war) defense spending is disproportionately
affected by the sequester, it is not projected to go below 2007 levels.
Raising fears about "national security" is (indeed)
a Chicken Little response.
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We need to find a compromise that allows us to gradually reduce
spending, while we find revenue from closing loopholes, reforming the
tax code, […]
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Carol offers the usual Democratic euphemisms for "tax increases" here.
Ignoring that we just had a huge tax increase.
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and going after waste, fraud, and inefficiency.
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A truly empty, worthless proposal. Hey, Carol, guess what? You can
go after waste, fraud, and inefficiency
any time. In fact: you could have done it before now.
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There are other suggestions as well. We could add a public plan to the
health insurance exchanges.
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This stupid idea would, of course, make out-of-control entitlement
spending even worse. Obama's effort to make it part of Obamacare
failed even when Democrats were in complete control of Congress.
This is a fundamentally unserious proposal.
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We could require the government to negotiate the price of prescription
drugs for Medicare Part D.
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Another one-time
Obama proposal that a Democrat-controlled Congress failed to
pass. It's a euphemism for price controls; we can guess how well
that would work. Even if it had a chance of passage, which it does not.
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We could raise the cap on Social Security.
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And one more tax increase.
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But there is very little action on Capitol Hill to do just that. Even if
we wanted to discuss it, we cannot because the House is not in
Washington, D.C., very often these days.
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To put it mildly: lack of discussion is not the problem.
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Sequester will hurt our economy in New Hampshire. It will hurt our
national economy. It will lead to lay offs, and it will create more
misery for the middle class and the poor. Congress has spoken. Now, they
need to listen. It is time to stop the sequester and create a viable
plan that reduces spending gradually and keeps the economy growing.
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More scarifying from the self-proclaimed Chicken Little.
For detailed counterpoint, see Dan Mitchell at Cato,
or Jeff
Bergner at the WSJ.
Carol's "solution" is to kick the spending can down the road
one more time. Just give us more time to figure out something, she
pleads. Vague promises of future spending restraint are "balanced"
by her demand for specific tax increases right now.
I'm not buying it. How about you?
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