Is It Political to Talk About Budgets?

There has been a lot of news of late about the Sequestration.  How does that affect our economy?  And why are decisions being made in the way they seem to be?

First its affect on the economy.  Sequestration has some affect, but at the levels of "savings", those affects should be minor.  Our government practices something called base line budgeting.  A number of years back, base line budgeting made some sense; today not as much.  The base line of a government budget item is what we are spending on it today.  To that inflation is added, as well  projected population growth.  Sounds reasonable, right?  And in most cases it is, however, not all cases.  As an example, according to the government inflation is minimal lately.  So a budget item won't get much bump from that, but it will always get some.  There are items that ebb and flow, depending on what is happening in our country.  As an example, the SNAP (Food Stamp) program is experiencing rapid growth, much more than the rate of inflation or growth in population primarily because of the economy.  Base line budgeting would not take that need in to account either now, or when the economy improves and demand goes down.  So now the program is under funded, and when the base line catches up, it may be over funded.  That means that now, some needy people may not get proper allocations, while later there will be a surplus, which invites waste and fraud.

Sequestration affects the base line.  Most of these items then, are not getting cut, but rather the rate of growth is being deflated.  And depending on where you read the sequestration is well under 5% of outlays. 

The second part of this is why cuts are being made where they are.  Recently, delays have been reported at major air ports because of Sequestration.  Why?  Seems that they are furloughing controllers one day every 2 weeks to get the required cuts.  Assuming that these controllers work 10 days in 14, one day would be 10%, or above the Sequester amount.  Seems to this blogger that there is some sort of craziness going on.

Years ago, I noticed that all government desires to grow.  My sister worked in a local school district.  They had a bond issue on the ballot and said they absolutely needed the money.  The ballot issue failed, and the result was they laid off a number of teachers, my sister included.  When I looked at the structure of the district, it turned out that a much more sane thing to do would be to lay off a couple administrators, leaving class rooms in tact.  But that didn't happen...

Laying off teachers was a way for the district to punish those who voted against the issue.  Today there are districts across the river in Illinois who are looking at ending extracurriculars, or music / Band, instead of going after the real problems.  I guess the theory is that if the parents want those things they will vote more money to the district to spend.



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That is what is happening in the Sequester.  It is a political game of cat and mouse.  One party is trying to lay blame to the other when something goes wrong like the air port delays.  Both parties agreed to the Sequester, it was voted on in both the House and Senate, and signed by the President.  Now both sides are using the people as pawns to push their political desires.  If the people feel pain, maybe we can get more taxes, or maybe we can win more seats, or maybe we can bully the other branch to do what we want.

Hey Democrats!  Hey Republicans!  That is wrong!  And I believe both sides are using the Sequester for political gain.  In the controller example above, $0.05 an hour pay cut would solve the problem.  A nickle an hour, not very much huh.  $2 a week less pay per employee (one less bowl of soup).  They may have to postpone some upgrades in equipment as well, and other administrative procedures.  But over all the effect would be minimal.  But minimal doesn't push the politics...

Spend Wisely!