Another Reason to Love the Sequester: Budget Cuts Prevent Agency from Destroying Valuable Computer Equipment

by Hans Bader on July 9, 2013

An agency unnecessarily destroyed $170,000 worth of computing hardware, and planned to destroy $3 million more, in response to garden-variety, easy-to-guard-against malware that posed no “significant risk.” It would have destroyed far more, if it were not for the lucky occurrence of budget cuts. The agency that idiotically did this, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) “intended to resume this” destruction “once funds were available.” The fact that agencies do this sort of thing when they get enough money to afford such waste is yet another argument for budget cuts such as the sequester, which leave agencies with less money to engage in such folly. CEI has previously explained why the EDA is wasteful and economically harmful and should be abolished. (The EDA wastes money on “convention centers” that “are economic losers,” and its meddling resulted in “the loss of 331 jobs and millions of dollars in economic activity in Brisbane,” California.)

The sequestration’s automatic budget cuts will help the economy in the long run, as we previously pointed out, citing the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the so-called “fiscal cliff.” Wells Fargo’s chief economist now says that the sequestration will be economically helpful in the long term. As Wells Fargo economists noted, the sequester will “eventually help the economy grow faster than it would have otherwise,”…..To Read More….