Sequestration Won’t Change the Path We’re On

Sequestration Won’t Change the Path We’re On

By Veronique de Rugy  

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: We shouldn’t fear the spending cuts under sequestration. This chart once again puts the Budget Control Act’s sequester into perspective by illustrating its effect on public debt, using data from the CBO’s projections of debt held by the public over fiscal years 2012 to 2021. 

As you can see, the automatic sequester cuts do very little to the overall trend in the growth of debt. Under current law, according to CBO projections, public debt will reach nearly $14.54 trillion by 2021. Under sequestration, it is projected to reach $14.38 trillion, a rather minute difference of $153 billion.
The United States was downgraded by S&P in August for failing to take the steps necessary to change our financial path. Unfortunately, sequestration cuts wouldn’t change much about our march to more and more debt.

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What Happened to the Tea Party?. Paul Waldman

When the 2012 Republican nominating contest was getting underway earlier this year, it was widely predicted (I predicted it myself) that the race would eventually come down to a contest between an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, and a Tea Party candidate more appealing to the party's base. It seemed perfectly reasonable at the time; after all, the Tea Party had energized the GOP and propelled it to the historic 2010 congressional election victory. With its anti-Obama fervor, the Tea Party was the focus of all the GOP's grassroots energy, to such a degree that nearly every Republican felt compelled to proclaim him or herself a Tea Partier. Once the Tea Party's champion was selected, we would discover just how much strength the party establishment still held in our decentralized political age.

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November 23, 2011 12:05am 88 Comments Barone: Thoughts on the AEI-Heritage-CNN debate. byMichael Barone

Republican presidential candidates from left, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, businessman Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman stand for the National Anthem before a Republican presidential debate in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The November 22 Republican presidential candidates’ debate, sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute (where I am a resident fellow) and the Heritage Foundation, and presented by CNN, was probably the most substantive and serious presidential debate of this election cycle.

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