Mitch Daniels: Sequestration Is a Bad Idea

Newsmax ^ | 31 Oct 13 | John Gizzi

[SkyPilot]

In rare political remarks since becoming president of Purdue University, former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has voiced sharp disagreement with many fellow Republicans over whether the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration should continue.

Daniels, once director of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush, dubbed sequestration a "bad idea" during a press breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

In so doing, the 64-year-old Daniels put himself on the opposite side of such national conservative leaders as Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, who recently told Newsmax "in the short term, it's important to maintain sequestration."

"The sequester is a bad idea," Daniels told Newsmax during the breakfast. "When the president suggested it — and I assume it was his idea — his purpose was to frighten people."

Obama probably never thought the automatic cuts would go into effect, Daniels said.

As to his own view that "the sequester is the wrong way to do business," the Hoosier Republican explained that "it penalizes worthy programs as well as bad programs and it doesn't go to the real root of the problem — namely entitlements."

Noting that the sequester is cutting only discretionary spending and not entitlements, Daniels predicted that unless entitlements were dealt with, "there will be a runaway growth of autopilot spending and it will devour us. Soon, every [agency] from the FBI to the Park Service will have to run on borrowed money.

[Theodore R.]

Republican primary voters surely make poor candidate selections.

[AdaGray]

They’re so annoying, aren’t they. Why, without them we might be lucky enough to even have Karl Rove as a candidate.

[Amendment10]

Given Mr. Daniels' likely indoctrination in law school, it wouldn't surprise me if he is oblivious to Congress's limited power to lay taxes.

More specifically, given the remote possibility that some freepers aren't aware of this, Justice John Marshall had officially clarified that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue which Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

So the sequester has actually cut spending for a bunch of federal spending programs that corrupt Congress never had the constitutional authority to establish in the first place.

In fact, one of the very few federal government services that Congress actually has the constitutional authority to establish, which citizens may be tangibly affected by concerning the sequester, is temporary disruption of US mail services. This is evidenced by the Constitution's Clause 7 of Section 8 of Article I.