{"id":17342,"date":"2013-03-01T14:10:38","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T19:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=17342"},"modified":"2013-03-01T14:10:38","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T19:10:38","slug":"paul-sequester-is-a-5-cut-on-a-17-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/17342\/paul-sequester-is-a-5-cut-on-a-17-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul: Sequester is a 5% Cut on a 17% Increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Senator Rand Paul<\/a> (R-KY) shines a spotlight on the true impact of today\u2019s sequester cuts:<\/p>\n

If the sequester were to take effect, our spending would only be cut by 2.3%. Let me repeat that \u2014 these “eviscerating” cuts will leave our country with 97.7% of our current spending, cutting a mere $85 billion from this year\u2019s $3.6 trillion budget.<\/p>\n

The sequester barely begins to skim the surface of the problem. Since taking office, President Obama has increased federal domestic agencies’ budget by 17%. This 17% increase since 2008 will have to endure a 5% cut.<\/p>\n

Even with the sequester, the federal government will spend more in 2013 than it did in 2012 \u2014 or more than $15 billion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An editorial in Investor\u2019s Business Daily<\/em><\/a> spells out in greater detail just how much federal spending has grown during the Obama Administration:<\/p>\n

\u2026here are some examples \u2014 using the OMB’s data and projections \u2014 showing the growth in spending for various federal functions since 2008 (percentage increases are inflation-adjusted):<\/p>\n

\u2022 Transportation: up $36.6 billion, an increase of 37.5%.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Education: up $30.8 billion, or 25%.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Housing assistance: up $16.4 billion, or 31.4%.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Community and regional development: up $11 billion, or 36.5%.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Natural resources and environment: up $9.5 billion, or 21.3%.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Farm income stabilization: up $6.8 billion, or 39.5%.<\/p>\n

\u2022 General government: up $5.9 billion, up 26.6%.<\/p>\n

This doesn’t exhaust the list of nondefense discretionary spending; it leaves out energy boondoggles and the burgeoning food stamp program, among others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other important budget items immune from sequester are federal entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, to name just the most recognizable three.<\/p>\n

While any budgets cuts are going to be painful, the $85 billion on the chopping block now is, to use Paul\u2019s word, a \u201cpittance\u201d when one considers that for the fifth year in a row the federal budget is likely to carry a $1 trillion deficit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) shines a spotlight on the true impact of today\u2019s sequester cuts: If the sequester were to take effect, our spending would only be cut by 2.3%. Let me repeat that \u2014 these “eviscerating” cuts will leave our country with 97.7% of our current spending, cutting a mere $85 billion from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[70,2441,1450,56,669,4046,61],"class_list":["post-17342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-budget","tag-cuts","tag-federal","tag-government","tag-rand-paul","tag-sequester","tag-spending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17342"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17349,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17342\/revisions\/17349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}