Sequester initiates new austerity drive against US workers
The political theatrics surrounding the sequester follow a well-established “bad cop, good cop” pattern. The pre-agreed result is always the same.
Over the weekend, President Barack Obama and Democratic and Republican lawmakers signaled that the across-the-board cuts in social programs under the so-called budget “sequestration” order signed Friday by Obama will remain in place indefinitely.
The unprecedented cuts in jobless benefits; education; student loans; nutritional aid to mothers and children; food, drug and water safety; air transport; research and infrastructure and other vital social needs will become the starting point for negotiations over the fiscal year 2014 federal budget. The focus of these talks will be massive cuts in the core social programs dating from the reforms of the 1930s and 1960s—Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Obama and Democratic leaders made it clear that in negotiations with the Republicans to extend funding authorization for the federal government, which expires on March 27, they would not seek to replace the sequester with a deal incorporating token tax increases on the wealthy along with more targeted spending cuts. Instead, they will accept an offer from the Republicans to extend funding at the post-sequester level, i.e., minus $85 billion, until the end of the current fiscal year, September 30.
As the New York Times put it on Saturday, this decision “most likely allows the across-the-board spending reductions to remain in place for months if not years.”
