Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay
Ryan Murphy
COMM/215
March 6, 2013
Gary Christiansen

Persuasive Essay
Sequester, what is it? How did we get here? Who is at fault? These are the thing we will discuss. Recently a lot of people have been in an uproar over sequester and the spending cuts that will automatically take place. What most people fail to understand is that this is not something that happened overnight it has loomed over us for months and our government has failed to take appropriate action to prevent it. The true effects of sequester are unknown to most, including the government officials that put it in place. Instead of pushing forward and attempting to come to a compromise the parties have decided to engage in a full scale blame war; It can be said however that compromise isn’t needed since the sequester itself is the result of a compromise made months ago in which one side has failed to live up to their end of the bargain. It may be possible that the provisions of sequester may be necessary and actually good for the country.
What exactly is Sequester? The Sequester is a series of automatic budget cuts, set to take place on the first of March 2013, signed into law by President Barrack Obama in August 2011. 85 Billion dollars of these cuts are set to occur during the 2013 fiscal year and will continue through 2021 totaling 1.2 trillion dollars. While sequester calls for across the board cuts to domestic spending as well as defense spending there are certain areas where no spending cuts will be allowed to take place. Spending on wars, military personnel, Funding allocated for Medicaid, Social Security, Pell grants, veterans ' benefits and some low-income programs are the areas that have been excluded from sequester and therefore cannot be cut. The programs that are exempt from cuts seem to be the ones that both side continue to tell the public will be the first to be cut, this shows either congress themselves do not understand the law or they are deliberately lying to the American public in order to gain political favor (Miller, 2013).
How did we get such a position in the first place? In August 2011 President Barrack Obama requested Congress to raise the debt ceiling allowing the country to borrow more money. Upon receiving the request Congress said they would agree to raise the debt ceiling immediately as long as by January 28th 2013 the President would agree to a budget which would cut 1.2 trillion dollars from the deficit. Failure to find these cuts through a budget would result in automatic cuts across the board. The Republican lead House has since put forth several budget proposals and the President has deemed them all unacceptable yet the President himself has failed to put fort ha proposal of his own. This should however come as no surprise as the current administration has failed to agree on a budget since President Obama took office and continues to run on resolutions and borrowed money. This shows that while a deal was made and the Republican lead house held up their end of the bargain by raising the debt ceiling when asked the President has failed to keep his end of the deal.
Who is really to blame for this situation? While both major political parties will have you believe that the other is at fault, the truth is there are 4 groups at fault here. The first group at fault is the Republican Party for making a deal in which their end had to be held up immediately while the President had time to plan how to not hold up his end. Secondly the Democratic Party is to blame for knowingly presenting a deal in which they had no intention of holding up their end. Thirdly the President is to blame for signing the bill and agreeing to make the cuts when he himself had no intention of following through on making the necessary cuts. Fourth and perhaps most importantly, we the people, the citizens of the United States are to blame for not keeping our elected officials accountable, for not educating ourselves on the issues, for continuing to vote the same people into congress and expecting a different result, and most importantly for allowing ourselves to be manipulated by party politics (Miron, 2013).
It is easy to divide a people once you have made them choose sides, our nation has become polarized to the point that even if we do not agree with someone’s stance we will often side with them because of their party affiliation. We must not allow ourselves to be divided; we must allow our voices to be heard. It is my humble opinion that perhaps we should do nothing about these budget cuts force these bloated government agencies to operate with less. Maybe just maybe these agencies will become more efficient and learn to operate within their means instead of growing themselves for the sake of growth. This may be the hard way to do it but our elected officials have been given the easy way for a long time and now somebody has to pay the piper, will it be painful for a lot of people? Yes it will but the fact remains at some point we must force our government to spend wisely, it is after all our money they are spending supposedly in our best interests.

References

Miller, L. (2013, March 1). Huff Post Politics. Retrieved March 6, 2013, from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/what-is-the-sequester_n_2783917.html

Miron, J. A. (2013, February 28). Cato Institute. Retrieved March 6, 2013, from Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/sequester-will-be-good-economy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CatoRecentOpeds+(Cato+Recent+Op-eds)

References: Miller, L. (2013, March 1). Huff Post Politics. Retrieved March 6, 2013, from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/what-is-the-sequester_n_2783917.html Miron, J. A. (2013, February 28). Cato Institute. Retrieved March 6, 2013, from Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/sequester-will-be-good-economy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CatoRecentOpeds+(Cato+Recent+Op-eds)