2013 US Budget and the sequester paradigm

Finally passing a budget, the US Congress did what it should have done years ago had the attitudes of our political leaders been different.  In many respects, the Budget that passed did little except break our political moment toward another government shutdown.  That said, it is a good thing that the new budget will replace Sequester cuts with targeted spending cuts. 

If we see similar deals that replace Sequester cuts with greater targeted cuts, historians will view the Sequester as successful and Americans will likely see the option added to our politicians’ limited arsenal for compromise.  Unfortunately, our leaders are not proactive in their management of our country as the sequester paradigm allows eventual results at unnecessary costs.  Until we see a more proactive generation of leaders seeking preventive policies, our reactive political environment must be addressed with reactive solutions like sequesters.

Moving forward, our political leaders must now turn toward different policy pursuits.  Most of those issues our politicians are inclined to pursue are divisive, i.e. Obamacare and immigration, thus they will end with no public policy benefits and greater division that revived our government’s descent toward dysfunction.  Consequently, our leaders should build on this latest fiscal success by building compromise solutions for other fiscal issues like tax reform.