Simulacrum and Sequestration

 As we approach the implementation of the automatic cuts to federal spending popularly referred to as sequestration, Americans expect to see a great deal of political gamesmanship with few, if any, political results. As of Friday, 2.4% of federal spending will be cut, not because it’s been determined to be the most effective reductions that will encourage fiscal health, but because a group of bipartisan members of Congress chose it as a bargaining chip in order to make negotiations for more reasonable spending cuts more appealing.

The cuts don’t make a lot of sense. About half of the cuts affect national security. About one-third affect discretionary spending. Only about 15% of the cuts affect mandatory spending; spending that is increasing at alarming rates yearly as a part of programs that are acknowledged to be financially untenable as-is (e.g. Social Security). Regardless of your political priorities, it certainly seems like the openly floundering programs we continue to pour money into should be seriously reformed, not allotted a modicum of the money needed to prolong their misery.

The even better news is that the sportsmen among us can expect a memorable round of the blame game to be played all the way up to, and probably past, Friday. We will see the simulacrum of legislation as the White House and both parties in Congress make overtures toward replacing an admittedly bad compromise. They almost certainly won’t take the serious steps necessary to avert a disaster they masterfully planned (see below), and they’ll hope that their electors’ discernment will fail when confronted with a shrill cacophony of angry men and women pointing fingers. At a certain point, it’s too unpleasant to care.

One interesting question at this point is: “How did Congress agree on the details of sequestration?” After all, sequestration is really just a terrible bipartisan spending reduction bill passed by both houses of Congress. The answer is that it’s much easier and more appealing for members of Congress to pick the opposing party’s poison, than to suggest reasonable concessions for their own parties. Sequestration is just the compilation of each party’s worst machinations for the other, aimed at upsetting crucial voter bases for their competition. Having nothing positive to offer Americans, they planned their own Pyrrhic victories two fiscal years in advance.

No matter who you hear playing the blame game this week, remember you’re watching a simulacrum of the legislative process that seems to be replacing real legislation more and more frequently. Lawmakers found threatening their opponents more appealing than solving a problem and that is why reckless spending cuts are taking effect.