I am barely holding out hope the House GOP can grow a backbone and provide the nation a much needed fiscal wake up call come January 1. In other words, I hope the House lets the sequestration [a.k.a. part of the fiscal cliff] take hold. Because to be honest, the wired in spending cuts are miniscule – as explained here:

The cuts, which are projected to total $1.2 trillion, are scheduled to begin in 2013 and end in 2021, evenly divided over the nine-year period. The cuts are also evenly split between defense spending — with spending on wars exempt — and discretionary domestic spending, which exempts most spending on entitlements like Social Security and Medicaid, as the Bipartisan Policy Center explains. The total cuts for 2013 will be $109 billion, according to the new White House report.

We ran up ~$1.3 TRILLION in deficit spending last year ALONE. These automatic cuts over 9 years won’t stop the financial bleeding, won’t even really slow it down much. Mainly because the federal government spends and wastes too much money each year on socialist BS and is strangling the private sector into oblivion. The coming cuts next year are not even 10% of the annual deficit, let alone a significant cut in overall spending each year.

On the tax side, it is much more painful because of all the taxes that will rise in tandem to the cuts – that is the painful part:

The challenge is complicated by the fact that the Bush tax cuts, the payroll tax, unemployment benefits and a host of other tax breaks are all scheduled to expire Dec. 31. The cumulative impact of all of these scheduled cuts and changes is what’s popularly known as the fiscal cliff.

What will the effect of all these increased taxes have on the deficit? Not much – but probably more than the sequestration cuts. The point is, it is drop in the ocean of red ink.

So when the bills come due  come January 1 (cuts in funding along with rising taxes), the end result will be brutally obvious. We are in debt so deep right now even this much ‘pain’ is not enough to turn it around.

And that is something that needs to be understood at a visceral level across all aspects of American society. Too many people must learn that the free ride is over and the nation will have to focus its support on just the most needy. It is time to wake those foolish enough to think the government has an endless supply of hard working families’ money to throw around. Time for a cold slap in the face.

I say bring on the full package of the fiscal cliff, feel the pain for a while, and wake up to the big train wreck we are heading for if we don’t start changing course. Don’t hide or protect anyone Mister Speaker. We are all in this slow moving disaster together, and it is time everyone understand what is at stake and sacrifice some. Either we pay some now, or we pay a whole helluva lot more in ten years time when our economy goes Greek on us. I say, take some tough love now. Let the polls go south for a while, they will return after the dust settles.

Tags: Fiscal Cliff