Whatever happened to that sequester thingy?
by digby
Remember when the congress and the administration pushed through a ridiculous plan called “sequestration” because everyone thought there was no way in hell that Republicans would agree to cut military spending and it would force everyone to the bargaining table? And the assumption was that the liberals would then cave in to “entitlement” cuts because that’s just how they roll? And remember when none of that happened and sequestration actually went into effect dampening the economic recovery and screwing millions of poor people?
Those cuts are still operative and there is almost no chance that the funding will be reinstated even though it was a meat ax approach that nobody expected at the time would ever go into effect.But what if those cuts could just be reversed? What would happen?
Reversing sequestration spending caps could create as many as 1.4 million jobs over the next two years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Tuesday.
At the request of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, the CBO analyzed the macroeconomic effects of completely eliminating the budget cuts, which are set to return in full force in October.
Easing those ceilings would lead to increased government spending, which in turn would lead to an increase in economic output and higher employment, the CBO said.
“Fully eliminating the reductions would allow for an increase in appropriations of $90 billion in 2016 and $91 billion in 2017,” CBO Director Keith Hall wrote in a letter to Sanders.
If Congress reverses the limits in fiscal 2016, for example, the CBO said it could result in the full-time employment of as few as 200,000 more people or as many as 800,000 more people. If the same were done for fiscal 2017, the CBO said it could similarly add as few as 100,000 jobs or as many as 600,000 jobs.
The CBO said sequestration relief would also cause the gross domestic product to grow by as much as 0.6 percent in 2016 and as much as 0.4 percent in 2017.
Sanders pithily commented: “arbitrary sequestration caps have never made any sense.”
No kidding. They were a stupid negotiating ploy that failed.
But that’s where we are. It’s clarifying if nothing else. One hopes that no Democratic president, whether Sanders or Clinton or Lincoln Chafee will ever underestimate the batshit insanity of the modern GOP again.
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