Last week, PoliFact’s “Truth-O-Meter” assessed President Obamas assertion that the sequester “won’t consider whether we’re cutting some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness, or a vital service that Americans depend on every single day. It doesn’t make those distinctions.” Citing analysis by UMBC political science professor Roy T. Meyers and others, PolitiFact concludes that Obama’s statement is an oversimplication, but it is mostly true that sequestration cuts will be indiscriminate.
The site notes, “even the fact that some programs are exempted from the sequester supports Obama’s point.” How? Meyers explains that the list of exempted programs (e.g., Social Security, Pell Grants, food stamps) “is the result of tradition and legislative negotiations, rather than a defensible process of prioritizing cuts based on explicit criteria.” Further, agencies’ discression over how to make cuts within their programs will likely be based on expediency, Meyers says, “not on whether a program is more effective or has a higher priority than other programs.”
Meyers also provided expert analysis for another PolitiFact post last week on the potential of sequestration to impact health care.
Tags: CAHSS, PoliticalScience
