SIMPSON-BOWLES and The SEQUESTER IN A NUTSHELL

Lately we are hearing these two terms a lot – Simpson-Bowles and Sequestration, often in the same sentence. So what are they, what do they mean and why should we care?

The Sequester - It seems that because of the Governments deal last year to avoid hitting the debt ceiling and the resulting failure of the congressional super committee, mandatory across-the- board cuts called “Sequestration” were set to go into effect at the end of 2012, one half of the "Fiscal Cliff", unless Congress could pass a bill to avoid it. Because we all know they failed to do this, we have now arrived at “The Sequester”...all Congress had been able to agree on was to kick the can down the road another 3 months, into this year, or as I like to call it, take the Scarlett O’hara approach, you know, the empty headed southern belle in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind ..."fiddle dee dee…I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.”

Simpson-Bowles: You can easily google this and get tons of info, but in a nutshell Simpson-Bowles are the names of the two Senators who chaired Obama’s 2010 National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a former Republican Senator and a Clinton Chief of Staff, respectively. The NCFRR was to have come up with policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run.

I won’t go into details here other than to say critics fear it would make deep cuts to entitlement and safety net programs, including Social Security and Medicare, hurting the most at-risk in our society, as well as education (programs that would hurt the Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program and even support for shelters provided under the Violence Against Women Act). Not to mention its plan to raise the retirement age is worrisome. Economist Paul Krugman feels the decision to raise the Social Security retirement age (because life expectancy has risen) completely ignores the fact that life expectancy has only gone up for the well-off and well-educated, while stagnating or even declining among the people who need the program most. Most worrisome to Republicans are the manditory and deep cuts to the Defense Budget, although it seems we already, by 6 to 1, outspend China, the next largest spender in Defense. You can read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-simpson-bowles-debt-plan-2012-10#ixzz2KKJdpeNXl

And so, soon we arrive at the ‘dreaded’ Sequester, ‘automatic’ spending cuts that will kick in to the tune of $1.2 trillion over a 10-year period, all because no one in Govt could agree on any plan put before them. Other than agreeing that a "Worst Plan Ever!” would kick in automatically IF they couldn’t agree on a Plan! Catch 22 anyone?

Norah O'Donnell at CBS has stated "Another deadline in Washington, another proposal for a short-term fix without any specifics about how to do it and thousands of people facing job losses."

Personally I like to think these guys are just playing politics as usual, after all, despite all the shrieks of “the sky is falling!” that we’ve heard relentlessly for the 8 or 10 years, we still find ourselves slogging along. This is just how ‘the game’ is played, right? They WILL find a way to DELAY the Sequester, right?

“It doesn't hurt to be optimistic. You can always cry later.” ~Lucimar Santos de Lima