Instapundit: Sequester Shows Blunt Cuts Work; Plus: Privatize Air Traffic Control
Glenn Instapundit Reynolds makes two sequester-related points in his latest USA Today column. The first:
Critics of across-the-board cuts always say that we should make "smart cuts" instead of using a "meat axe." But the reason why we have a ballooning national debt is that our politicians are clearly incapable of making "smart cuts."
When my own state, Tennessee, was facing budget difficulties a few years ago, our then-governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, ordered across-the-board cuts. Nobody liked it, but it brought things under control. Many other states have responded to budget difficulties in similar fashion. So why not try more of it at the national level?
And second:
Whatever politicians control, they will use against you to get what they want. The furloughs weren't a reasoned effort to save money: They were an attempt to punish voters for not approving tax increases. If the politicians could have shut down ESPN and blamed insufficient revenue, they would have done that, too.
But they don't control ESPN. And, really, there's no reason why they should control the air traffic control system, either. Why not privatize it?
As Reynolds points out, that's what Canada did, to strong reviews.
Here's a 2009 Reason TV video explaining how that would work: