Playtime is over

So, the Super committee failed.

I had a plan, you know, to post here the day after it happened. To do my "told you so" dance while I sipped a glass of wine alone in my dark room.

But that didn't happen. Instead I'm sitting here still doing my "told you so" dance, but it lacks the gusto associated with doing said dance on time. And the glass of wine. Writing about the damn committee is so much easier with a bit of mental lubrication.

Oh well. You can't win them all.

Anyways, they failed and now the triggers that will slice $1.2 trillion from the budget over the next 10 years will go into effect in January 2013.

All of that doom and gloom (mostly gloom) I spoke of earlier will start kicking our ass two winters from now. To what degree will that ass kicking be? Well, $1.2 trillion over 10 years is about roughly $54.7 billion dollars from defense and domestic spending a year, according to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta (I totally called this guy...OK, I'm lying) and The Washington Post (they did call him...I hope).

On the defense side: That means defense contracts will be nullified, civilian workers will be fired and they will scale back purchases. That last one isn't so bad, since we do spend more than -- oh I don't know -- the WORLD in military spending. (Ok, so it isn't the world, but Christ do we spend a lot of money on the military).

On the domestic side: This means less money given to Medicare payments. Meaning? Insurance companies and doctors will be reimbursed less for seeing Medicare patients. Less money for them means businesses that rely on heavy Medicare patients (larger hospitals) could see a drop in revenue.

More domestic goodies: Less money for infrastructure building, border patrol, EPA, IRS (eff those guys anyway), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That last one is important. They play a big role at OU and give us a nice chunk of research dollars.

The time is here. Our Congressmen/women failed to put a deal together, so the guillotine they locked the public in for motivation is set to come crashing down. The problem? The blade is rusty and dull. It isn't going to cut through in one swift fall. It will have to take a few swings (10 to be exact) each year to finally make the cuts it wants to.

It is going to hurt. Once the triggers go into effect, people are going to get fired. Pay is going to freeze. Governments (which as much as Republicans don't want to admit it, DO employ people) will stop hiring while they layoff droves of workers.

It is going to get worse for 10 years before it gets better. Our economy hasn't been in the best health, but that doesn't mean we need to take its medicine away, and then punch it in the face for good measure.

There is no justification to make these cuts, and I dare any of you to tell my otherwise. Actually, I want you to tell me otherwise because this is what we are stuck with.