Bottom line: Obama insisted on this sequester and signed it into law, so that he can make it as painful as possible and blame it on the Republicans.
“The sequester was an option we were forced to take because the Republicans would not do tax increases.”
Which is a fucking lie, because final the deal reached in 2011 between Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), stipulated that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what Obama wanted: that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months. The debt ceiling has already been raised to a whopping $16.4 trillion.
The sequester budget layoff notices that were delayed until after the election are starting to kick in.
Let the scare tactics begin.
There are dire warnings of flight delays, park closures, cuts in education, child care, public health, and job searches, which is a joke considering there are no jobs.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Monday that her agency would be forced to furlough 5,000 border control agents under mandatory spending cuts, likely allowing more illegal immigrants into the country and potentially compromising national security.
Napolitano said the cuts, known as the sequester, would disrupt the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to conduct customs inspections at ports, leading to increased waiting times for travelers and cargo shipments. Disaster relief funding would be reduced by $1 billion, she added, meaning relief for victims of natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy and tornados in Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., could be cut. …
Janet’s doing such a bang-up job protecting America from Kinder Eggs, whistleblowers, thermoses, refusniks, white middle class Americans, elderly people, mentally retarded people, leukemia patients, children, and Soldiers, that we wouldn’t want to cut her spending.
Any hits taken by government employees won’t even begin to match the impact of Obama’s disastrous economy on the private sector. Private companies have laid off thousands of people in response to the looming ObamaCare/tax increases.
Senator Coburn talks about Obama’s priorities:
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Monday demanded that President Obama’s budget office stop agencies from hiring low-priority employees in order to preserve essential workers in the face of the looming budget sequester. …
Coburn, in a letter to Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeff Zients, wrote Monday that there are 10 “non-essential” job advertisements running on the government’s hiring website, www.usajobs.com. Coburn said freezing hiring for these positions alone would save $1.4 million. …
“Are any of these positions more important than an air traffic controller, a border patrol officer, a food inspector, a TSA screener, or a civilian supporting our men and women in combat in Afghanistan?” Coburn wrote.
Senator Coburn also says that government spending on things like Zombie Apocalypse training, underwater robots, surveillance at baseball spring training, and remote controlled traffic helicopters, should be put to better use.
Bobby Jindal points out that Obama’s endless campaigning and over-the-top scaremongering has gotten old.
About those 800,000 civilian Pentagon employees that Panetta said he was preparing to lay off: They’ll have their 5-day work week cut to four. They’ll be furloughed one day a week.
Big fucking deal.
The average civilian federal worker makes $74,403 a year. The federal government paid at least $439 million in employee bonuses in 2011. I served as a U.S. Soldier for a total of 30 years (10 Reserve, 20 Active), and that’s a hell of a lot more than I ever made. If I were a full-time federal worker, the last thing I would do is bitch about a four day work week.
BTW: Obama’s paycheck will remain unaffected. Naturally.
All that nail biting over layoffs, yet the government continues to spend our tax money on some of the most obscene, disgusting waste ever allowed in a modern Democratic Republic.