Jumping the Sequester

When the president canceled White House tours, he revealed his claims as ludicrous.
Excerpt:

The phrase "jumping the shark" describes that gimmicky moment when something once considered significant is exposed as ludicrous. This is the week the White House jumped the sequester.

The precise moment came Tuesday, when the administration announced that it was canceling public tours of the White House, blaming budget cuts. The Sequesterer in Chief has insisted that cutting even $44 billion from this fiscal year will cause agonizing pain—airport security snarls, uninspected meat, uneducated children. Since none of those things has come to pass, the White House decided it needed an immediate and high-profile way of making its point. Ergo, it would deny the nation's school kids a chance to view a symbol of America.

The act was designed to spark outrage against Republicans, yet the sheer pettiness of it instead provided a moment of clarity. Americans might not understand the technicalities of sequester, but this was something else entirely. Was the president actually claiming there was not a single other government item—not one—that could be cut instead of the White House tours? Really?

Comment: Meanwhile ... the stock market survived the sequester!

Crying Wolf

It's gonna be bad! (Or probably not!)

Budget sequestration: What if "the sky doesn't fall"?

Hail Armageddon

Excerpt:

“The worst-case scenario for us,” a leading anti-budget-cuts lobbyist told The Post, “is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens.”

Think about that. Worst case? That a government drowning in debt should cut back by 2.2 percent — and the country survives. That a government now borrowing 35 cents of every dollar it spends reduces that borrowing by two cents “and nothing bad really happens.” Oh, the humanity!

A normal citizen might think this a good thing. For reactionary liberalism, however, whatever sum our ever-inflating government happens to spend today (now double what Bill Clinton spent in his last year) is the Platonic ideal — the reduction of which, however minuscule, is a national calamity.

Or damn well should be. Otherwise, people might get the idea that we can shrink government and live on.

Hence the president’s message. If the “sequestration” — automatic spending cuts — goes into effect, the skies will fall. Plane travel jeopardized, carrier groups beached, teachers furloughed. And a shortage of junk-touching TSA agents.

The Obama administration has every incentive to make the sky fall, lest we suffer that terrible calamity — cuts the nation survives. Are they threatening to pare back consultants, conferences, travel and other nonessential fluff? Hardly. It shall be air-traffic control. Meat inspection. Weather forecasting.

A 2011 Government Accountability Office report gave a sampling of the vastness of what could be cut, consolidated and rationalized in Washington: 44 overlapping job training programs, 18 for nutrition assistance, 82 (!) on teacher quality, 56 dealing with financial literacy, more than 20 for homelessness, etc. Total annual cost: $100 billion-$200 billion, about two to five times the entire domestic sequester.

Are these on the chopping block? No sir. It’s firemen first. That’s the phrase coined in 1976 by legendary Washington Monthly editor Charlie Peters to describe the way government functionaries beat back budget cuts. Dare suggest a nick in the city budget, and the mayor immediately shuts down the firehouse. The DMV back office, stacked with nepotistic incompetents, remains intact. Shrink it and no one would notice. Sell the firetruck — the people scream and the city council falls silent about any future cuts.

After all, the sequester is just one-half of 1 percent of GDP. It amounts to 1.4 cents on the dollar of nondefense spending, 2 cents overall.

Because of this year’s payroll tax increase, millions of American workers have had to tighten their belts by precisely 2 percent. They found a way. Washington, spending $3.8 trillion, cannot? If so, we might as well declare bankruptcy now and save the attorneys’ fees.

Comment: See The Sequestration Boogeyman. The sun will rise tomorrow!

The Sequestration Boogeyman

First deny ownership .... second ... scare the bejesus out of people!

The Facts: Obama owns the sequester! It was his idea. He can't blame Bush or the Republicans.

Bob Woodward: Sequester: It was Obama's deal

Excerpt:

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

... At the Feb. 13 Senate Finance Committee hearing on Lew's nomination to become Treasury secretary, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., asked Lew about the account in my book: "Woodward credits you with originating the plan for sequestration. Was he right or wrong?"

"It's a little more complicated than that," Lew responded, "and even in his account, it was a little more complicated than that. We were in a negotiation where the failure would have meant the default of the government of the United States."

"Did you make the suggestion?" Burr asked.

"Well, what I did was said that with all other options closed, we needed to look for an option where we could agree on how to resolve our differences. And we went back to the 1984 plan that Senator (Phil) Gramm and Senator (Warren) Rudman worked on and said that that would be a basis for having a consequence that would be so unacceptable to everyone that we would be able to get action."

In other words, yes.

Second scare people! So much more could be cited about this: borders opened to illegals, prisoners released, air craft carriers unable to operate, National parks closed, 3 hour lines at the TSA. But I cite just one:

Maxine Waters: 'Over 170 Million Jobs Could Be Lost' Due To Sequestration

Yesterday we did have Mr. Bernanke in our committee and he came to tell us what he’s doing with quantitative easing and that is trying to stimulate the economy with the bond purchases that he’s been doing because he’s trying to keep the interest rates low and jobs – and he said that if sequestration takes place, that’s going to be a great setback. We don’t need to be having something like sequestration that’s going to cause these jobs losses, over 170 million jobs that could be lost

And now Karl Rove (read the entire article)

The $85 billion in spending that will eventually be cut after the sequester kicks in amounts to around two cents on the dollar in the overall federal budget.

More:

On Friday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he'd have to furlough 5,000 air-traffic controllers. On Saturday, the president warned in his weekly radio address that thousands of teachers "will be laid off," and "tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care."

On Sunday, the White House released a report for each state detailing how many unsafe bridges would be left unrepaired. On Monday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar threatened to close all National Park campgrounds. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she'd have to sideline 5,000 border agents. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it would release from detention several hundred illegal immigrants.

This is all hogwash. After the sequester, this fiscal year's federal budget ($3.553 trillion) will still be larger than last year's ($3.538 trillion). Last year, the border was patrolled, emergency responders arrived when called, and airplanes left on time and landed safely. The federal budget is now $446 billion, 14% bigger than the last annual budget of Mr. Obama's predecessor. Washington surely can survive a modest retrenchment of 2.3%.

Virtually every family, business, state and local government has made deeper cuts than that in recent years.

On the Bogeyman (and the image source):

A bogeyman (also spelled bogieman, boogeyman or boogieman) is an amorphous imaginary being used by adults to terrorize children into submissive behaviour. The monster has no specific appearance, and conceptions about it can vary drastically from household to household within the same community; in many cases, he has no set appearance in the mind of an adult or child, but is simply a non-specific embodiment of terror. Parents may tell their children that if they misbehave, the bogeyman will get them. Bogeymen may target a specific mischief — for instance, a bogeyman that punishes children who suck their thumbs — or general misbehavior, depending on what purpose needs serving.