The
Sequester,
which should
be not be
taken
lightly by
the trucking
/
transportation
industry is
referred to by
the White
House as
"Harmful
automatic
budget cuts
— known as
the
sequester —
threaten
hundreds of
thousands of
jobs, and
cut vital
services for
children,
seniors,
people with
mental
illness and
our men and
women in
uniform.
These cuts
will make it
harder to
grow our
economy and
create jobs
by affecting
our ability
to invest in
important
priorities
like
education,
research and
innovation,
public
safety, and
military
readiness."
President
Obama and
both parties
in Congress
have been
working
together for
the last few
years to
reduce the
deficit by
more than
$2.5
trillion
looking into
spending
cuts and
tax rate
increases.
But after
all these
years of
discussions
and
negotiations,
they could
not agree on
a plan to
reduce the
deficit, and
in 2011
Congress
passed a law
saying that
"if they
couldn’t
agree on a
plan to
reduce our
deficit by
$4 trillion
— including
the $2.5
trillion in
deficit
reduction
lawmakers in
both parties
have already
accomplished
over the
last few
years —
about $1
trillion in
automatic,
arbitrary
and across
the board
budget cuts
would start
to take
effect in
2013"
Congress has
not
compromised,
and as a
result, the
harmful cuts
"known as
the
sequester"
began March
1.
The White
House stated
that these
cuts will
"jeopardize
our military
readiness
and
eviscerate
job-creating
investments
in education
and energy
and medical
research,
and don’t
take into
account
whether they
eliminate
some bloated
program that
has outlived
its
usefulness,
or cut a
vital
service that
Americans
depend on
every single
day."
President
Obama
further
stated that
“The whole
design of
these
arbitrary
cuts was to
make them so
unattractive
and
unappealing
that
Democrats
and
Republicans
would
actually get
together and
find a good
compromise
of sensible
cuts as well
as closing
tax
loopholes
and so
forth. And
so this was
all designed
to say we
can't do
these bad
cuts; let’s
do something
smarter.
That was the
whole point
of this
so-called
sequestration."
Hopefully
this short
article will
give us all
a better
understanding
of the
Sequester.