White HouseMy colleagues point out that the
White House is spreading bogeyman stories thick and deep with
warnings that sequestration will
shutter agencies that were actually closed down long ago and
bring  American life to a grinding halt as
unfunded bureaucrats stop greasing the wheels and wiping our snotty
noses for us. But it’s true that the Obama administration has a
lot of
examples to offer of lost programs and salaries and subsidies
if sequestration forces a humongous 1.5 percent reduction in
projected spending for fiscal 2013, reducing the behemoth on the
Potomac to *sob*
spending only a little bit more ($3.55 trillion) than it spent
the previous year ($3.53 trillion). With the Congressional Budget
Office
estimating (PDF) that “[b]y 2023, if current laws remain in
place, debt will equal 77 percent of GDP and be on an upward path,”
those examples should be ample evidence that federal spending is an
unsustainable monkey on America’s collective back, and it’s as good
a time as any to go cold turkey.

The White House helpfully breaks down the oh-so unconscionable
cuts in essential services sequestration will force on us state by
state. So it’s easy for me to peruse the
sad fate awaiting my community (PDF) because “Arizona will lose
approximately $17.7 million in funding for primary and secondary
education, putting around 240 teacher and aide jobs at risk.”
Teachers and aides? Why is D.C. needed to pay for teachers and
aides in Arizona schools? Wouldn’t it be a tad more efficient if we
in Arizona paid our own teachers instead of sending money off to
the swamp that neither Maryland nor Virginia wanted so that it can
be returned to us as an example of federal largesse?

Likewise, “[a]round 2,310 fewer low income students in Arizona
would receive aid to help them finance the costs of college and
around 330 fewer students will get work-study jobs that help them
pay for college.” Uh huh. Note that, even in this era of inflated
higher education costs, annual in-state tuition at
Northern Arizona University remains a not-so-ruinous $8,453. Maybe
students could work at real jobs to pay the bill (my wife waited
tables and I worked at a warehouse and sold dope) instead of the
phony subsidized “jobs” that constitute work-study.

The White House also warns that “[i]n Arizona, approximately
10,000 civilian Department of Defense employees would be
furloughed.” That sounds like a great start in transitioning toward
a productive economy that blows less stuff up. As for “job-search
assistance” and “law enforcement and public safety funds,” I think
my county could survive with a few less sheriff’s deputies and I
imagine they can all master the intricacies of Monster.com.

Overall, even if you approve of the programs that are threatened
with cuts, it’s not clear, aside from defense-related expenditures,
why those programs are funded in any way by the feds.

On a national basis, the White House highlights five areas of
supposedly especially dire threats from sequestration:

• Cuts to education
• Cuts to small business
• Cuts to food safety
• Cuts to research and innovation
• Cuts to mental health

To me, this is less an argument against cuts than an exhibit of
how dependent we’ve allowed ourselves to become on the federal
government. Are we really going to argue that private businesses
need the federal government in order to function? Research
and innovation needs the wizards of D.C.? If so, it’s only
in the way that my Uncle Nick needed a glass of
scotch.

I don’t doubt that weaning people who have grown accustomed to
dependency off of the federal teat may be a bit painful at first,
but the well really is running dry. Note that the CBO’s estimate
that “debt will equal 77 percent of GDP” is based on optimistic
assumptions. The CBO
adds (PDF):

If, for instance, lawmakers eliminated the automatic spending
cuts scheduled to take effect in March (but left in place the
original caps on discretionary funding set by the Budget Control
Act), prevented the sharp reduction in Medicare’s payment rates for
physicians, and extended the tax provisions that are scheduled to
expire at the end of calendar year 2013 (or, in some cases, in
later years), budget deficits would be substantially larger over
the coming decade than in CBO’s baseline projections. With those
changes, and no offsetting reductions in deficits, debt held by the
public would rise to 87 percent of GDP by the end of 2023 rather
than to 77 percent.

Automated, unthinking across-the-board cuts may not be the
best way to reduce the country’s dependence on a stumbling
federal government, but Americans have to put down the crack pipe
some time. Now would be a good time to start, with a very modest
trim to what will still be an increase in federal
spending.