President Obama, in his State of the Union Address, pressured Congress to find a way to avoid the sequester. In the President's radio address this past weekend, he said the sequester would be "a huge blow to middle-class families and our economy as a whole." The President’s senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer warned that "devastating" sequester cuts would "imperil our economy, our national security, (and) vital programs that middle class families depend on."
So, how much will the sequester cut from the budget you ask? This year, 2013, the Federal Government is expected to spend $3.8 trillion dollars. The government will collect $2.9 trillion in taxes. The difference, $901.4 billion, will be added to our our current 16.3 trillion dollar debt.
The sequester, as it turns out, cuts a whole $85 billion dollars in 2013 or 2.24% of total spending. The defense budget for 2013 is 900 billion dollars. The sequester will require a 42.7 billion dollar cut in defense spending or 4.74% from their budget. Now here is what’s hard to take, the federal government has been growing their budget 4.64% on average each year since 2007.
So, to put this in perspective, if you made 50,000 dollars last year and were told your pay increase this year would only be $1,200 instead of $2,320 how “devastating” would that be? You might be disappointed but it certainly wouldn't put your household finances in “economic peril!”
6 comments:
Good example. This isn't a cut in current spending. It is a cut in increased spending. A lower pay raise.
I want to clarify the Sequester is a reduction in spending that will last for ten years. That is why some declare it is a 1.16 trillion dollar cut. I chose to use only the current year, 2013, because what Congress does in ten years is anybody's guess.
Thanks for putting this in perspective! Washington language always amazes me. No wonder Hollywood supports big government - they're both in the business of creative fiction to make something sound believable.
Jim, thank you for crunching the numbers honestly and then using real English to explain what they mean.
More, please!
But, Jim...
What about all that 'Obama Money' they were passing out in Chicago after the first election... Won't the sequester affect all those 'freebies' a certain segment has come to expect..(tongue in cheek)
The sequester was Obama's gimmmick in the first place. He wanted it, signed it, and now we should give it to him. The fact is he and the Dems, don't want to cut any spending, and have not cut any spending despite the fantasy they are promoting that we have already cut 4 trillion in the next ten years. We have not cut anything. As long as he and Harry Reid control the government, the seques
ter is the only cut you will see. Conservative control of both houses of the Congress is the only way to slow, or reverse the policies that are destroying the American economy, and hopefully a conservative president at the end of the debacle that is this Obama'sn administration.
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