Volume XX No.1: January 2, 2015
After the fiscal year 2015 CROmnibus was enacted, talk quickly turned to FY2016 and the return of the dreaded sequester. The fear is that sequestration, the across-the-board spending cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, is going to rear its ugly head again. That this mindless, unthinking mechanism that cuts good and bad spending alike is going to return and decimate governmental programs.
Except the talk is wrong. Or, more accurately, lacks an understanding of the role of Congress in making spending decisions and the details of budget agreements of recent years. Sequestration doesn’t have to happen in fiscal year 2016, or in any other year. All Congress has to do is come up with a responsible budget that raises an adequate level of revenue to cover desired levels of spending. Essentially, it simply needs to do its job.
This post was imported from a legacy archive. Please excuse any formatting inconsistencies.