It’s Your Choice, Mr. President!

You’ve heard about the upcoming cuts to the federal budget now for weeks, and tomorrow, they will kick in. Despite our soaring debt, now over $16.6 trillion, pundits of all shapes and sizes are lamenting the impact of these cuts on everything from the military to travel.

What’s not being said in the mainstream media is the control that President Obama has over how these cuts would be implemented. The sequester, as it has become known, is an across-the-board cut of $85 billion that will impact every aspect of federal spending. Sounds scary, right? That’s not exactly the case if you take a few moments to digest the numbers. 

The cuts, if taken across the board, represent a 2.4 percent reduction in the overall budget. That budget today stands at $3.6 trillion, hence the impact of the $85 billion in cuts is negligible in this context. Indeed, the budget for 2013, with the cuts taken into account, still exceeds the 2012 budget. So what’s with all the posturing and doom and gloom commentary? It comes down to politics. With the current economy continuing to struggle, every politician is looking for an angle here as a way to place future blame should things continue to flat line, or worse, go down. 

That’s one of the reasons why you are seeing politicians act like demagogues on the issue as they try to scare the living daylights out of anyone who will listen. That’s why it’s time for straight talk on all sides so people can truly understand the real issue. The issue is spending, and anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t being truthful. Indeed, they are either delusional, or worse, lying. 

In 2003, our federal budget was just over $2 trillion, and things were pretty good back then. Today, that number is $3.6 trillion, a 75 percent increase in spending. That increase has become the new baseline number in our budget talks when we should really be talking about how to bring it back to levels seen even just a few short years ago. Cutting $85 billion out of that monstrous budget is not even a cut, it’s simply a slowdown in the growth rate of the budget. When you look back over the decade we had relatively little inflation, outside of food and gas prices, so the increase is even more remarkable. 

Travel has been mentioned as part of these cuts, with Ray La Hood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, discussing airline delays, security delays and other potential impacts. Do you really believe a 2.4 percent cut in the funding for the FAA and TSA will result in an extra hour in security lines and delays in airline flights? If that were indeed the case, wouldn’t it make sense to find savings in other areas first? 

And that’s where we are today. Most people don’t realize that the president has the ability, in the way the law was written, to cut non-essential services. Again, it’s not even really a cut since the overall budget has gone up, even after this is factored in, from last year! 

It’s time for our politicians to actually lead and make decisions that are good for the country as a whole, and not to satisfy a specific group or coalition. Encourage your representatives to do just that by sharing this opinion on your Facebook page, Twitter account and other social media outlets. Take an extra step and share your thoughts directly with each of your representatives. As a group, we can create change. 

If travel gets impacted in a negative way, it’s the choice of our leadership, not a result of some draconian cuts. That’s why we have elections. Make sure our leadership understands that their choices have consequences.