Lt. Col. Orson Swindle III, USMC (retired)
The Hill
What’s it going to take to get Congress to act on sequestration?
For months, military experts have been warning that $500 billion in new defense cuts would make it impossible to defend U.S. interests around the globe. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says it would sound the death knell for sorely needed weapons upgrades and generate “significant operational risk” for our troops.
Economists predict the cuts would destroy more than a million private sector jobs and cut economic growth by 25 percent. Hundreds of thousands more jobs would be lost within the Department of Defense.
And just last week, the Congressional Budget Office concluded these cuts would send us over a “fiscal cliff” and help usher in another recession.
Meanwhile, Syria is boiling over, Iran is closing in on a nuclear bomb and al Qaeda is regrouping in Yemen and beyond. At home, a weak economic recovery seems to be running out of steam, and the jobs reports grow worse and worse each month.
Yet Congress fiddles, and the punditocracy says the issue can wait until after the elections.
Standing for reelection without addressing this steep threat doesn’t seem like very good politics to me.
From Lt. Col. Orson Swindle III, USMC (retired), former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, Alexandria, Va.
This letter can be read here: http://thehill.com/opinion/letters/231375-leaders-dont-understand-laws-of-supply-and-demand
