The sequester is a very important issue that deals with making cuts to programs in order to help our failing economy and help with the deficit issue. In reading Tasha Houze's blog post about sequester, I began thinking about certain flaws in the process.
The fact that they made cuts indiscriminately is a problem. I feel that there are certain programs that could have directly been targeted for a larger amount of cuts, as opposed to taking them from many low income and important programs that don't need to be cut such as education and healthcare. Maybe we could take more from places like ethenol substities. This is going to effect low income programs and many people such as defense civilian employees. Although the effects from these cuts will not be felt right away, they will be felt over the next few months. This forces both parties to make cuts, but they do not need to cut across the board. While I may not have all the information regarding the sequester, I know enough to make the point that things like Education Budget, HealthCare Budget,TSA and the Defense Budget should not be touched and there are ways around cutting funds from such important programs.
This was a debt ceiling compromise, but who is getting effected the most out of this compromise? programs that help support peoples health and women and children will also be cut such as WIC. With over $40 billion being cut from defense and over $9 billion in Medicare being cut, the FDA and NASA are also recieving a huge number of cuts. I would say there should be some serious reconsideration as to where we pull our cuts from. Why not pull some of these cuts from the salaries of federal employees? I realize that this is a fragile situation and that at some point we are going to have to pull funds from programs that somebody somewhere finds important. It is just a sad state that our economy is in lately. I work in the service industry and I feel it every day. I see plenty of friends of mine that have been layed off who are incredibly talented in the fields they work in. We used to have a thriving econmoic status and our credit rating sits now at an AA-. We need Democrats and Rebulicans to come together and put their self needs aside and get the nation back on its feet.
Sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/02/statebystate.png
