Sequestration needs to happen. It’s a very small step in the right direction of getting federal spending under control. However, without meaningful entitlement reform, a balanced budget amendment, and some serious fiscal discipline in DC, it’s going to be looked back upon as a symbolic measure at best.

Utah’s budget issues are a separate, but related, issue. Utah receives more back from the feds than we pay in federal taxes, and that’s a problem to start with. If Utah could break free of the federal purse strings (and having control of our own currently-federally-owned land would more than suffice in that regard), we’d be a lot better off. However, for that to happen, DC would have to give up control (read: power), and we all know how much they like to do that.

Re-read my intro…”idle threats at best.” That said, Utah’s reality is that we’ll always face a problem with 30% of the budget coming from the Feds.

You’re almost as bad as the president in using scare tactics to exaggerate the consequences of the pending federal budget cuts. Yes, 30% of the state budget (if not more, as I’ve heard in some estimates) comes from the federal government. Yes, sequestration is a contraction of federal spending (not really — in reality, it’s a contraction of estimated future spending, not actual cuts). But sequestration will not cut ALL federal funding that Utah has grown dependent on. Yes, it will impact us, but it will not be a 30% hit to the state budget. The estimates I’ve heard range from $300 to 500 million dollars, which, on a $13 billion dollar state budget amounts to approximately 2% – 4% less money — even if it all hit in the same fiscal year, which it won’t. And before you ask if the average family can live with a 2% cut in its take home pay remember this: We already are. The payroll tax “holiday” that expired on January 1 (remember sequestration 1.0?) cut all of our take home pay by about 2% already.

So let’s not go all “Chicken Little” and scream about the sky falling. Rather, let’s use this as just more evidence that Utah has grown too dependent on federal handouts from a national government that can’t even sustain its own issues, let alone continue to fund state budget needs. Utah needs to become more self-reliant. And learning to live with a little less federal pork is a good first step in that direction.