SEQUESTRATION: THE CARPET BOMBING OF OUR ECONOMY!

Do you remember the term "Carpet Bombing"? It comes from World War Two and the Vietnam War when the planes would fly over the battlefield and just lay down a blanket of bombs. There was no precise targeting, they destroyed pretty much everything. Well we are about to experience the economic equivalent of carpet bombing, it's called "Sequestration." I don't know where they came up with that name but it boils down to  1.2 trillion dollars in across the board cuts to all agencies of the Federal Government except for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, food stamps and federal retirement programs. 

Now, if you are of the Tea Party persuasion then this probably sounds pretty sensible but here's the problem, it will cost us about 2.14 million jobs at a time when we have record high unemployment and an economy that is just starting to get it's head above water. Sequestration is also like "carpet bombing" in that it does not make targeted cuts. Every program gets an equal percent cut, good, bad or indifferent, they all will get whacked.

If we are going to fix our long term debt problems we need to do three things and we need to do them in a certain order and a precise way.

Step 1  "Restore Robust Growth" and bring down unemployment drastically. This can be done by spending money on updating and rebuilding our infrastructure, expanding educational opportunities and converting as much of our power grid as we can to renewable energy. If restoring growth is not done first, then we will be taking the path of Greece, Spain and England who all made massive cuts to government spending and promptly slid into recession or in the case of Greece and Spain, depression. Oh, and by the way had their debt problems increased at the same time.

Step 2 "Reform the Programs That Are Really Causing Our Debt Problems." Of all the programs that are at the heart of our debt problems only Defense is included in the Sequestration cuts. I'm no fan of the Defense budget but if we are going to fix the problem we need to work on all programs that are  causing it.

Step 3  "Cuts Must Be Precise And Well Thought Out." All these cuts and reforms effect peoples lives, the stability of our economy and the security of our country we should really think about what we're doing not just use automatic, indiscriminate cuts to slash and burn our way to a balanced budget.

So that brings me back to how the Sequestration cuts are like "Carpet Bombing?" Simply put, they are both automatic, indiscriminate, frighteningly destructive and create a lot of collateral damage. Did I hear someone yell "INCOMING"?

So what do you think? Will Congress act before we carpet bomb our economy back into recession or could that be precisely what the Tea Party Republicans want to do?