sequester – Granite Grok

National Parks Service Still Acquiring New Land Post Sequester

Ask your congress critter why the National Parks Service and Department of the Interior are crying in their sequester boo-hoo towel while simultaneously spending even more money to expand the system and the costs required to maintain it. Sen. Tom Coburn says there’s “no shortage of potential savings,” pointing out that the department is nevertheless spending millions on … Read more

The Waste List

by Steve MacDonald

Courtesy of Twitter and the NRCC, we have a list of government spending defined as waste. There is wasted regulatory spending, and then the plain old “why is the government paying for that” waste. Examples? Video game programs and studies. Audit programs that cost more than they save. Sculpture gardens. How about cash innovation awards … Read more

Can They See Your Closed Airport Tower From There?

by Steve MacDonald

The Obama daughters are vacationing in the Bahama’s this week, complete with friends, Secret Service, and court followers aplenty. Last month Michelle lead an entourage that included both daughters on a Presidents day ski-weekend in Aspen, complete with private all-day lessons, Secret service and court followers as well. (Mister Obama was busy playing golf with Tiger Woods, and the other entourage of … Read more

The Sequestrians Are Coming!

by Rick Olson

“For every credibility gap there is a gullibility gap.” —Richard Cobden

Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee in the 1700’s on discussing democracy opined,

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”

It seems there is multiple threads of truth and realism when this notion

Agricultural Statistics Trump Safe Landing Fields

by Susan Olsen

One can hardly believe it. In the bazillions of dollars the US Senate’s “continuing resolution” wants to confiscate just to keep the joint open through September, one finds this gem early on: “In the Senate of the United States, March 20, 2013. Resolved, That the bill from the House of Representatives (H.R. 933) … Read more

Oh WHY did we think that this would be part of those FAA tower closures?

by Skip

I learned to fly out of the Lawrence Airport in MA and part of the training was to fly in and out of smaller airports. I learned the radio frequencies to use to announce my entry into the landing / takeoff patter and to toggle the runway lights. Standard fare as most of the airports in the US are considered “general aviation” fields – small biz jets and prop planes – not having a Tower talk you in was no big deal. So upon hearing that the FAA was going to close some of these towers of the mid size fields was not a big deal – pilots are trained to deal with this. But like much of Obama’s response to his own sequester plan (for it was the White House that came up with it), instead of a corporate handling of a 2.4% lowered budget (where true non-essentials are cut out), his Administration has been intent on causing the taxpayers and citizens as much grief as possible (even as his Administration just caused all of us to live 2.4% less due to raising out taxes). So closing FAA towers is part of that – but WHY these particular 149 Towers? From Hot Air:

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday told 149 regional airports across the country it would begin closing their air traffic control towers in April, but said it would spare another 40 towers that had been on the chopping block.

As the post says, this is all about less than 2/3ds of a $Billion out of budget of $58 Billion – small change at the 50,000 foot level. But take out paper pushers first? But what is so special about those 40? Oh, sure:

When “Government Does Not Work”….to Eliminate “Government” That Does not Work.

by Steve MacDonald

The non-partisan US Inspectors General have recommended spending reforms to Executive branch agencies that would reduce waste, fraud, and abuse. The House Oversight committee has jurisdiction over the IG’s and on March 5, released a report relating to the issue, going back to 2001. There are now close to 17,000 unimplemented recommendations, over 6000 of them added since 2009. … Read more

These people vote. They decide who the President will be. No, it’s no joke. It’s real.

by Tim Condon

http://youtu.be/3gXOV_XWJck

Shea-Porter Promotes Air Traffic Controller Sequester Scare But Ignores FAA Waste on One-Percenters

by Steve MacDonald

Shea-Porter on potential FAA cuts at Manchester airport

Democrat Carol Shea-Porter, the Democrat parties “narrative mule” for congressional district one in New Hampshire, has a link on her official “I’m Your Congresswoman!” Facebook page. Shea-Porter’s status update simply says “Control towers at airports such as Manchester’s could be left unstaffed by budget cuts.”

Unstaffed! Holy Air traffic controller-less tower Batman!

The link provided with this ‘news’ leads to a story at NECN about how the airport tower in Manchester, New Hampshire is on the list of candidates in New England that could lose it’s midnight shift as a result of some $600 million dollars in cuts to the FAA budget as a result of Barack Obama’s sequester. That would be the sequester that the White house and Democrats arm-twisted the House into passing (with Democrat support), and has since decided to blame them for in its entirety.

Carol, the dutiful Democrat sheep that she is, has happily toed the assigned narrative without regard to the veracity of its claims, but someone might want to tell her a few things about how much DOT, and more specifically the FAA, requests annually in its budget, and how much of that massive sum gets wasted on what the FAA itself calls “low priority spending.”

Sequester Will Destroy 170 Million Jobs

by Steve MacDonald

I confess that I missed this (until now).

Democrat Maxine Waters (D- Doh!), relieved that she is not in prison for all the corruption she has engaged in while elected to the US House of representatives, is making up for that by just being herself.

“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 so he made it very clear he’s not opposed to cuts but cuts must be done over a long period of time and in a very planned way rather than this blunt cutting that will be done by sequestration.”

As Charles C.W. Cooke points out at NRO’s The Corner, there are only about 134 million jobs in America.

From the Edge of Sequestration – Mopping Up Another Obama Lie

by Steve MacDonald

Obama lies a lot, or…he is about as well informed as Carol Shea-Porter. Obama: “Starting tomorrow, everybody here, cleaning the floors at the Capitol. They’re going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards. They just got a pay cut. They’ve got to figure out how to manage that. That’s real.” Architect of the … Read more

Ask Democrat Carol Shea-Porter About Vaccines For New Hampshire Kids

by Steve MacDonald

Back on February 26th, in the midst of the blame Republicans for Obama’s Sequester narrative, New Hampshire District One Congressperson Carol Shea-Porter tweeted this.

The sequester would automticlly cut 30 million dollars from the section 317 program run by the CDC that sends money to states to support vaccination programs.

Carol thought you might want to know, probably after someone told her to tell you, that cutting 30 million from the Section 317 program would be, like, bad.

So if cutting 30 million would be bad, would cutting almost 60 million be almost twice as bad?

From The Edge Of Sequestration…We’re Walking, And We’re Walking, And We’re Stopping. [Updated]

by Steve MacDonald

In an effort to make sequestaria appear like a real crisis neither the White House nor the Vice Presidents residence will be conducting tours in the foreseeable future… because the evil Republicans voted for Obama’s bill and wouldn’t cave like the Democrats had planned. In response to this Rep Louie Ghomert, Texas, has proposed an amendment to HR 933 that would force … Read more

From The Edge Of Sequestration…Another Update

by Steve MacDonald

The Edge Of Sequestration. Sounds like a Soap Opera, but then it is. Take the TSA for example. Janet Napolitano promised we would suffer if Sequestration were allowed to take effect as workers were furloughed. Wait-times at airports would skyrocket because of these budget cuts.

While you’re waiting in those longer lines that may or may not exist, you’ll have extra time to admire the new uniforms TSA bought just before the sequester hit. DHS signed a $50 million deal to buy uniforms just before the sequester hit, some of which will be made in Mexico.

At least the TSA is giving jobs to Mexicans that Americans wont do…in Mexico. And back in the US, no one is reporting an increase in delays.

Not Castration, Sequestration.

by Steve MacDonald

Castration? You would think so to hear the rhetoric and demagoguery, but no. (Did you happen to notice ‘Dem’ at the beginning of Demagoguery?) Uh-huh, It’s true.

Give back a few pennies on the dollar and the Left insists the world could end. Sounds like lousy management to me. Well, OK

But why is the Federal Government still hiring people for these job

The Sequester in One Chart

by Susan Olsen

H/T Coyote Blog

“I wonder how the other Groksters are faring in the midst of the destruction….”

by Skip

Tim posed that question yesterday, my answer is “Not too shabby, actually”. Sure, just like the Federal Government, I had to take a 2% haircut financially earlier this year (1/1/13) as Obama decided that His Progressive policy to “better perfect” tax policies, decreed that I had to give up not paying the FICA tax that His Highness earlier had decreed was necessary to “better perfect” our tax policies. I still am not sure which was the better “better perfect” perfection I’m supposed to believe in.

Go figure – Progressive Perfection policies; how do they keep straight faces with this kind of stuff? In the mean time, I had to “perfect” a lesser personal budget quick.

Then I had to do it again (“better perfect” my personal budget). You see, even while the Feds haircut just started yesterday as His Excellency decreed that His Progressive policies had to “better perfect” our healthcare, my cost went up – and a whole lot more than by 2%. In fact, string a bunch of 2% cuts together and that adds up. Plus, with his “perfection” of His Progressive energy policy, my weekly grocery bill has soared (as corn crops are turned into ethanol that eats our car engines) and my gas bill is mirroring it. So, I have to make do with even less. I guess this is the way that Progressives wish to “perfect us” to be better people. Maybe I am doing more shabby than I thought….yet, His Head Honchoness is still crying that that SequesApocolypse would crash society simply because Government programs and bureaucrats would get 2.4% less to spend: 2 cents out of every dollar.

How come that 2% out of their Government wallet means more to them than they think it is taking it out of our wallets?

Obama Doesn’t Want Dictatorial Power over Sequester Cuts

by Steve MacDonald

Email and social media have been burning up with cries and moans about the US Senate giving Obama dictatorial power.

What they actually tried to do was to give him complete control over the Sequester cuts. Only the Sequester cuts. But all 85 Billion. Obama could pick and choose what got cut without having to concern himself with congress. He could save head start, border patrol, firefighters, and instead pick low priority programs or the jobs of redundant pencil pushers.

He said he’d veto it.

Given the chance to lead, he voted present. He is either incapable, or unwilling to lead. Or, more likely, leading presents too many risks to his real agenda, which has nothing to do with protecting and defending America as he claims and everything to do with protecting Obama.

Added video the jump; Charles Krauthammer on Fox News

Notable Quote – Jonah Goldberg

by Steve MacDonald

From Today’s G- File Anyway, the interesting thing about the sequester is how it exposes the shallowness of his (Obama’s) moral-equivalent-of-war rhetoric (or, if you prefer, his equally ridiculous elision of “community” or “family” with “government”). When military units have a hardship, they make do. When communities come up short of money, everyone pitches in. … Read more

The Sequester: We were warned, but we just wouldn’t listen!

by Tim Condon

And now, because there might be a teensy, weensy, tiny percentage decrease in the continued projected headlong explosion of increased government spending, our existence may be coming to an end, all as accurately reported by National Review’s Morning Jolt: