The sequester is here to stay -- now the military needs to get to work

The sequester has been law for almost two years. But the Pentagon’s delayed planning for implementing it has now made it easier for Congress to keep massive defense cuts on the books.

The military wasn’t given their marching orders from the White House to begin formal planning for sequestration until the end of December 2012, just days before it was set to become law.

This political calculation – wait, wait, wait, never mind -- on the part of the administration is now hurting our troops and setting back efforts to undo sequestration for the remainder of the decade.

Military leaders are at the beck and call of a capricious White House which knows the sequester is bad policy, but occasionally views it as good politics.

Think about it this way: The White House first loved sequestration (remember the president threatening to veto any efforts to undo it?), and then decided it was a bad idea.  

As a result, planning for the on-again/off-again cuts that have never really been off has been an exercise in political contortionism.  

Military leaders are at the beck and call of a capricious White House which knows the sequester is bad policy, but occasionally views it as good politics.  

Congress hasn’t been much better.  

Some members have bemoaned the profligacy of the Pentagon, while others have talked up the machete like approach to trimming defense.  

But while Congress as a whole has been incapable of agreeing about how to roll back epic cuts in defense spending, they’ve been quick to act to protect other federal priorities feeling immediate pain as a result of sequestration. 

From long lines at the airport to meat inspector furloughs threatening food safety and supply, Washington has shown it can mobilize in short order when prompted.

But collectively these carve-outs have softened the implementation of the sequester and made it more palatable. That makes it easier to lock it in permanently because it is simply no longer a forcing function requiring an immediate compromise solution.

Nor have military and civilian defense officials done themselves any favors. By failing to detail earlier the deleterious impact of the sequester on the military, defense leaders themselves made it easier for Congress to stand firm on the spending cuts and move on to other higher-profile problems.

The Chiefs were complicit in abiding by and defending the political decision not to properly and thoroughly plan for sequestration. 

Just last week, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs went so far as to say it would have been “literally impossible” to build an alternate budget that acknowledged the law.

But just over a year ago, Pentagon officials crafted two budgets for fiscal year 2013 after the Budget Control Act set newly reduced spending caps for the Defense Department. As a result, officials began revising defense strategy downward to meet the new fiscal realities. The Pentagon’s draft alternate budget eventually replaced the original one and a variant later was submitted to Congress.

By claiming that this act of planning and due diligence could not have been repeated, the Chairman further hurt the credibility of Department of Defense leaders with Capitol Hill. While it is true that officials did not have time between March 1 and the submission of the president’s budget to Congress on April 10 to come up with a new budget, they should have anticipated the possibility of the law staying in effect.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and other defense officials would be wise to stop looking back and defending past decisions. 

It’s time for them to get busy working on an honest and public accounting of the effects of continued sequestration on the US military over the next fiscal year. 

The sooner, the better.

Congress must insist Pentagon officials take into account sequestration and resubmit the president’s 2014 budget request. In fact, Senators Levin and Inhofe, leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to this effect to Secretary Hagel on Friday. 

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees should now include this directive in their versions of the defense authorization bill later this summer.

Sequestration has already lowered the federal government’s spending baselines. Sequestration or similar spending levels are the new reality in the draft House and Senate budgets for 2014 written by Rep. Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray. 

Now, any dollar above these amounts will now be considered "growth" in the defense budget. That means that any attempts to restore funding will start to look like additional spending, rather than a sober restoration of much-needed security.  

In other words, the sequester is here to stay.  

Had Pentagon officials provided detail about how and where they would implement these painful spending reductions in April, politicians could clearly have understood the consequences of their choices. Not providing them publicly has only made it easier for Washington to absorb the sequester.

No pain means no change for the defense budget and the U.S. military. This time, Pentagon leaders had better get it right.

Mackenzie Eaglen is a resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). She has worked on defense issues in the U.S. Congress and at the Pentagon.

View the original article here

Sequester cuts to force closure of crucial flood-warning gauges

• 

  July 5, 2011: This handout photo provided by the US Geological Survery (USGS), taken near Westhope, N.D., shows the Souris River at the peak for the great Souris River flood of 2011, with equipment stored in cooler bolted to roof of gage house because water level was above gage house shelf.AP

WASHINGTON –  More than 100 crucial gauges that warn of imminent flooding or lack of needed water will be shut down starting next month as part of the federal government's automatic budget cuts.

Some are in the nine states threatened with spring flooding, U.S. Geological Survey officials said in interviews with The Associated Press.

In rivers where flooding is imminent, such as near Fargo, N.D., officials are scrambling to keep needed monitors working and make the cuts elsewhere. Details are still to be worked out, officials said.

Jerad Bales, the agency's chief scientist for water, said at least 120 gauges, and as many as 375 in a worst-case scenario, will be shut down because of the mandatory cuts known in Washington budget language as sequestration.

"It's a life and property issue. It's a safety issue," Bales said in a telephone interview.

Agency flood coordinator Robert Holmes said that without a full fleet of stream gauges, it is harder to warn people about flooding. For example, he said, the Illinois River was rising fast a few nights ago and the National Weather Service forecast was so dire that officials figured it wasn't worth fighting the flood if they were going to lose anyway.

But then new stream gauge data showed that it wouldn't quite be as bad and that the levee could be strengthened enough to hold. So far it has worked, he said.

There are 8,000 gauges across the country, paid for by a combination of federal, state and local governments. The federal government last year spent nearly $29 million on gauges, while other governments pitched in $116 million.

The sequester cuts 5 percent from the federal share and that means shutting down a handful of gauges in each state.

Because it is a joint program, decisions on which gauges to shut down are being made only after federal and state officials meet.

For example, USGS officials originally proposed shutting four gauges in North Dakota, including two on the Red River which is facing what might be a record flood. After meeting with state officials, those two gauges will stay working, but two others may be closed, said Gregg Wiche, who runs the USGS North Dakota Water Science Center.

Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker said the Red River gauges are crucial not just to weather forecasters, but to the public. Gauges are monitored at times on an hourly basis because "our level of protection is based on what the river is doing," he said.

In Illinois, 10 gauges have hit record high levels, with 53 others at or above flood levels, according to the USGS.

James Lee Witt, who ran the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Clinton administration during the 1993 Mississippi flooding, said, "There are as many as nine states that will be impacted by spring floods and this not the time to make such harmful budget cuts."

Paul Higgins, a meteorologist who is associate director of the American Meteorological Society's policy program, said cutting federal programs that help the country avoid natural disasters is "a costly mistake."

The gauges will be shut down at different times in different states, starting in May in Idaho and Maine, according to the USGS.

Water levels are important for monitoring drought and keeping nuclear power plants on the river operating, USGS officials said. In Idaho, fisherman and whitewater river rafters use monitors to tell them where they should go, said Michael Lewis, head of the USGS Idaho Water Science Center.

View the original article here

White House chef to be furloughed because of sequester cuts

Published April 09, 2013

Associated Press

Washington –  Even White House chefs could be feeling the pain of government budget cuts.

Assistant chef Sam Kass, who cooks dinner for President Obama several nights a week, said Tuesday that he will be furloughed as part of across-the-board budget cuts that went into effect in March. Kass, who is the president's senior nutrition policy adviser, made the comments in an interview with food reporters at the White House.

The White House has said 480 workers on the budget staff may have to take days without pay but hasn't said whether notices have gone out to other Obama aides.

Kass also plants the White House garden and is the director of first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign to combat childhood obesity. He said that effort won't be affected.

View the original article here

Dozens of WH senior staffers making six-figure salaries amid sequester woes

After closing the doors to public tours in an effort to save money, White House officials haven't yet said if sequester cuts will result in furloughs or layoffs for its senior staffers -- as is happening with rank-and-file in other executive branch agencies. 

But there are dozens of senior employees and other presidential "assistants" to choose from if the administration were to look at cutting the six-figure salaries from its payroll. 

In the field of energy and climate change alone, President Obama in 2012 employed three advisers making at least $100,000 -- though one has since left. 

The president kept on staff a "deputy assistant" for energy and climate change, Heather Zichal, making $140,000; a "special assistant" for energy and environment, Nathaniel Keohane; and a "deputy director" for energy and climate change, Dan Utech. 

Together, their salaries totaled over $370,000 last year, according to White House records. 

Climate blogger Steven Goddard said it's unlikely the administration will scale back its circle of advisers, at least on this issue. 

"It's a very important point to his political base," Goddard said. "Whether he believes it or not himself, he has to make the effort to appear that he's working on controlling the climate." 

Zichal, who previously worked in the 2008 Obama campaign, during the president's first term helped craft administration policy on fuel economy standards and mercury pollution regulations. Keohane worked via his post on the White House Domestic Policy Council. Keohane left the White House last year to join the Environmental Defense Fund. 

The White House is being scrutinized after a decision -- driven in large part by Secret Service staffing considerations -- to end public tours of the "people's house." That decision took effect this past weekend, outraging lawmakers and spurned tourists alike. 

While that decision freed up money in the Secret Service budget, some are waiting to see what the White House will do to show sacrifice on its end. 

The latest 2012 salary figures released by the White House show 20 staffers were making the maximum $172,200. Many of them are well-known President Obama aides, including Press Secretary Jay Carney and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Most carry the title of "assistant to the president." 

But underneath them are dozens of "deputy" assistants and "special" assistants to the president, most making six-figure salaries -- like the climate change advisers. A review of the 2012 salaries by FoxNews.com shows 139 White House staffers making $100,000 or more. 

The White House often attracts top-tier lawyers, bankers, security experts and others who were making far more in the private sector. Any administration wants to offer good money in order to lure the right people into -- or back into -- public service. 

But the payroll under the Obama White House has expanded since the Bush administration. The payroll went from $33 million in 2008 to $39 million in 2009. Since then, the Obama administration has scaled back its White House staff expenses, but the payroll was still at $37.8 million in 2012. 

There are two more employees making the maximum salary now than in the final year of the Bush administration. Two ethics advisers each make close to $140,000. 

The chief calligrapher makes $96,725. Another calligrapher makes over $94,000, while another makes close to $86,000. 

On Friday, White House Deputy Press Secretary John Earnest said the White House will be affected by the sequester much like other agencies -- and in some capacity will impose furloughs. 

"We're also faced with making some tough decisions when it comes to ongoing projects, when it comes to purchasing equipment and supplies. But we're also a pretty personnel-heavy agency, if you will. So that means ... there will be employees of components who work here at the White House that will be facing pay cuts, that will be facing furloughs," he said.

View the original article here

Dozens of WH senior staffers making six-figure salaries amid sequester woes

After closing the doors to public tours in an effort to save money, White House officials haven't yet said if sequester cuts will result in furloughs or layoffs for its senior staffers -- as is happening with rank-and-file in other executive branch agencies. 

But there are dozens of senior employees and other presidential "assistants" to choose from if the administration were to look at cutting the six-figure salaries from its payroll. 

In the field of energy and climate change alone, President Obama in 2012 employed three advisers making at least $100,000 -- though one has since left. 

The president kept on staff a "deputy assistant" for energy and climate change, Heather Zichal, making $140,000; a "special assistant" for energy and environment, Nathaniel Keohane; and a "deputy director" for energy and climate change, Dan Utech. 

Together, their salaries totaled over $370,000 last year, according to White House records. 

Climate blogger Steven Goddard said it's unlikely the administration will scale back its circle of advisers, at least on this issue. 

"It's a very important point to his political base," Goddard said. "Whether he believes it or not himself, he has to make the effort to appear that he's working on controlling the climate." 

Zichal, who previously worked in the 2008 Obama campaign, during the president's first term helped craft administration policy on fuel economy standards and mercury pollution regulations. Keohane worked via his post on the White House Domestic Policy Council. Keohane left the White House last year to join the Environmental Defense Fund. 

The White House is being scrutinized after a decision -- driven in large part by Secret Service staffing considerations -- to end public tours of the "people's house." That decision took effect this past weekend, outraging lawmakers and spurned tourists alike. 

While that decision freed up money in the Secret Service budget, some are waiting to see what the White House will do to show sacrifice on its end. 

The latest 2012 salary figures released by the White House show 20 staffers were making the maximum $172,200. Many of them are well-known President Obama aides, including Press Secretary Jay Carney and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Most carry the title of "assistant to the president." 

But underneath them are dozens of "deputy" assistants and "special" assistants to the president, most making six-figure salaries -- like the climate change advisers. A review of the 2012 salaries by FoxNews.com shows 139 White House staffers making $100,000 or more. 

The White House often attracts top-tier lawyers, bankers, security experts and others who were making far more in the private sector. Any administration wants to offer good money in order to lure the right people into -- or back into -- public service. 

But the payroll under the Obama White House has expanded since the Bush administration. The payroll went from $33 million in 2008 to $39 million in 2009. Since then, the Obama administration has scaled back its White House staff expenses, but the payroll was still at $37.8 million in 2012. 

There are two more employees making the maximum salary now than in the final year of the Bush administration. Two ethics advisers each make close to $140,000. 

The chief calligrapher makes $96,725. Another calligrapher makes over $94,000, while another makes close to $86,000. 

On Friday, White House Deputy Press Secretary John Earnest said the White House will be affected by the sequester much like other agencies -- and in some capacity will impose furloughs. 

"We're also faced with making some tough decisions when it comes to ongoing projects, when it comes to purchasing equipment and supplies. But we're also a pretty personnel-heavy agency, if you will. So that means ... there will be employees of components who work here at the White House that will be facing pay cuts, that will be facing furloughs," he said.

View the original article here

White House cancels tours over sequester cuts, as lawmakers call decision political

Sorry, Washington-bound spring-breakers. Your White House tours have been canceled.

The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it will cancel all tours starting this weekend, due to sequester cuts. The move prompted swift condemnation from Republican lawmakers, who described the decision as the latest attempt to make the sequester seem worse than it is. 

"It's politically motivated," Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told Fox News. "It seems childish -- take my ball and go home." 

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, declared in a statement that "the people have been banned from the people's house." 

The announcement is the latest from the administration about the impact of the cuts that went into effect last Friday. Congressional staffers received a terse email saying White House tours would be canceled effective this Saturday. 

The email cited "staffing reductions" from the sequester. 

"Unfortunately, we will not be able to reschedule affected tours," the notice said. "We very much regret having to take this action, particularly during the popular Spring touring season." 

White House tours, which are self-guided, are typically scheduled through members of Congress. Visitors can request a tour through their representative up to six months in advance. 

Anyone arriving after Saturday, though, is in for a disappointment. 

A recorded message on the White House visitor's hotline Tuesday confirmed that the tours will soon be nixed until "further notice." 

Cramer said if he were to give the administration the benefit of the doubt, he could see White House tours being on the list of nonessential items. He said he doesn't think they'll close the White House to the public forever. 

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said the decision is just a bid to pressure Republican members to change course on the sequester -- he said it would not be successful. 

But Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, told Fox News this is another reason why both sides should figure out a compromise. She said the closure of White House tours will be "alarming" for children coming to D.C. for spring break. 

The annual National Cherry Blossom Festival also attracts droves of tourists in late March and early April, though the White House can no longer be on their itinerary. 

The administration has announced a raft of expected cutbacks in response to the sequester. The Defense Department, and other federal agencies, are planning to furlough thousands of workers to save money. Congress also announced that it would cut back on foreign travel. 

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report. 

View the original article here

Without entitlement reform, America could experience a permanent sequester

Parks are closing. Government workers are being furloughed. The Department of Defense is issuing warnings about compromised military readiness. The Department of Homeland Security is making similar claims about border security.

Everywhere you look there is talk about the consequences of the recently imposed automatic federal spending cuts. Although most of these are really cuts in the Washington sense of the word—a slower rate of spending increase—sequestration is designed to make deficit reduction choices on auto pilot when federal lawmakers are unable to make them in real life.

The effected programs are being squeezed because mandatory spending on entitlements was largely taken off the table. This resulted in bigger cuts in everything from military spending to transportation infrastructure investments to national parks. But the sad fact is that this is the fiscal path the country was already embarking upon, with sequestration being just one small part of the problem.

Reforming entitlements before it’s too late would keep Americans from living in a permanent state of sequestration.

That’s because as the Baby Boomers retire, entitlement spending and interest payments will gobble up the entire federal budget, leaving little room for anything else. 

Ten years from now, automatically growing programs like Social Security and Medicare will make up 62 percent of annual spending. The Pentagon budget will be just 12 percent. We’re just seven years away from interest payments on the national debt outpacing defense.

According to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, interest payments and entitlements will consume the entire federal budget by 2025. That means no funds left over for the programs hit by sequestration without substantial additional borrowing.

Conservatives will rightfully be concerned about putting defense on a starvation diet. But many liberal priorities will be hurt too. 

The group Third Way published a paper titled “Collision Course: Why Democrats Must Back Entitlement Reform,” arguing, “as the cost of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security has skyrocketed, we’ve spent less and less of our budget educating kids, building roads, and curing disease.

"That means no money for national defense. No money for homeland security. No money to fix the nation’s crumbling bridges and roads. No money for medical research to find a cure for cancer or Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases," Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) concurred in a March 2012 House floor speech.

The nonpartisan fact-checkers at PolitiFact Virginia rated Wolf’s statement as “true.”

While optimists hope that faster economic growth or reduced health care costs could improve this bleak budget outlook, there is also the potential for things to get worse.

If interest rates rise significantly above their current lows, so will the cost of borrowing. The U.S. government could also face further credit downgrades, such as when Standard & Poor’s stripped Uncle Sam of his AAA bond rating in 2011.

Social Security and Medicare are currently projected to face their own cash crunches soon enough. That means that even as they consume more federal tax revenues, these programs may see a decline in quality as the government struggles to pay for the promises it has made to the nation’s seniors.

By one estimate, nearly one-third of doctors nationwide refuse to accept new Medicaid patients because the government health care program for the poor doesn’t pay enough to cover the costs of treating them. This hasn’t just hurt doctors, who received from Medicaid just 58 percent of what private insurance paid in 2008, but also people covered under the program, as their health care options have dwindled.

If Medicare has to cut its payments to doctors as well, there may be a similar decline in quality health care for senior citizens too. “If caring for Medicare patients is too costly, doctors will simply opt out and care for the disabled and those over 65 will become hard to find,” writes the physician Peter Lipson.”

At a time when the country is changing, spending commitments that were made in a very different bygone era are actually handcuffing politicians and limiting the next generation’s choices.

Reforming entitlements before it’s too late—and before current beneficiaries would be impacted—would keep Americans from living in a permanent state of sequestration.

Sometimes, less is more.

W. James Antle III is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and author of the forthcoming book "Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped? Regnery Publishing (March 19, 2013)"

View the original article here

Romney: Washington letting 'golden moment just slip away' with sequester

Mitt Romney, in an exclusive interview with "Fox News Sunday," said Washington is letting a “golden moment just slip away with politics,” as he described watching the unfurling fiasco over the sequester. He described it as the “hardest” part about losing in November.

The 2012 Republican presidential nominee and his wife Ann spoke extensively with "Fox News Sunday" in their first post-election interview.   

Romney said the automatic spending cuts which take effect Friday should be seen as an “opportunity” to finally solve America’s fiscal problems – by coming together on a “long-term fiscal” package.

“I mean I see this as this huge opportunity and it's being squandered by politics, by -- by people who are more interested in a political victory than they are in doing what's right for the country.  And it's very frustrating, I have to tell you,” he said. “The hardest thing about losing is watching this -- this critical moment, this golden moment just slip away with politics.”

Watch the Romneys on "Fox News Sunday" at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET on Fox News Channel -- check local listings for Sunday morning airtimes.  

Romney criticized Obama, his former campaign rival, for “flying around the country and berating Republicans and blaming and pointing.”

“The president has the opportunity to lead the nation and to bring Republicans and Democrats together.  It's a job he's got to do and it's a job only the president can do,” Romney said.

Joining other Republicans who say the administration is making the sequester seem worse than it is, Romney criticized the administration for recently releasing low-priority illegal immigrants from Arizona jails.

“It's politics. It's, ‘okay, how do we do something that will get a headline that will make it look like those terrible Republicans aren't willing to come together?’” he said.

The former nominee also described the 2012 race as a “roller coaster” that eventually ended.

Ann Romney described the "adjustment" she and her husband made -- going from being surrounding by crowds and Secret Service agents to, after Mitt Romney's loss in November, being by themselves again. She likened it to serving in different positions in their church.

"In our church, we're used to serving and you know, you can be in a very high position, but you recognize you're serving. And now all of a sudden, you're released and you're nobody," she said. "And we're used to that. It's like we came and stepped forward to serve. And you know, the other part of it was an amazing thing, and it was really quite a lot of energy and a lot of passion and a lot of -- a lot of people around us and all of a sudden, it was nothing."

She added: "But the good news is fortunately we like each other."

View the original article here

Sequester fears take mainstream media hysteria to new heights

R.E.M. sang, “It’s the end of the world as we know it.” If ever there were a theme song for the liberal media’s coverage of the sequester the band's iconic song would be it. 

The “broad and sweeping federal budget cuts” being debated on the Hill are being reported breathlessly in the news media. NBC’s Brian Williams called it “high anxiety” and a “Good Morning America” graphic sounded the alarm: “Seven Days to Fiscal Emergency.” ABC’s David Kerley said the sequester “sounds like a disaster movie.” He didn’t scream, but he still has time.

In one of the best examples of political theater, famed Washington Post editor and reporter Bob Woodward reminded the world recently that the sequester was Obama’s idea. That set in motion a bizarre circumstance where Republicans were relying on Woodward and Democrats were trying to discredit him as a tool of the right. Yes, this was the same Bob Woodward who helped destroy Republican President Richard Nixon.

Turn on almost any network newscast and there’s one theme. The federal budget might be cut! The horror!

The New York Times warned the $85 billion in budget cuts – just 2.4 percent of the budget – were ushering in an era of “federal austerity.” The story began in a typically apocalyptic manner: “Fear of U.S. Cuts Grows In States Where Aid Flows – Recovery Seen At Risk – Wide Impact Looms on Jobs, Tax Revenue, and Schools.” Even the Times’ pretend conservative David Brooks blasted Republicans as “mindless anti-government fanatics.”

The Huffington Post screamed with predictable hyperbole “AUSTERITY COUNTDOWN: 4 DAYS TIL PAIN” across its front page like Mr. T had taken over headline writing. It was followed by subtle subheads like: "'Prepare To Suffer’” and “‘The Road To A Lawless Society Is Being Paved.’”  Who knows, tomorrow’s headline may lament “dogs and cats living together.”

Every major old-school news outlet has shouted about the “worst-case scenario for government spending cuts,” as if they were deliberately doing the bidding of the liberal Democrats who couldn’t find a way to cut in a Ginsu factory. We’ve been told about cuts in research, cuts in jobs, defense-crippling cuts at the Pentagon that keep carriers in port and even vaccines that won’t ever get made.

CBS’s Wyatt Andrews warned on February 25, about NIH research that “will one day find a drug to diminish the impact of old age.” As if prescription drug firms wouldn’t pay for that research … if they thought it potentially viable. 

Yet the sad truth is that in the eyes of the news media, every government program is perfect. It’s those evil Republicans who won’t raise taxes, after just raising them only two months ago.

Turn on almost any network newscast and there’s one theme. The federal budget might be cut! The horror! By March 1, when the cuts start taking effect, the broadcast networks could well be using Hindenburg graphics with desperate government workers bailing out of jobs in mid-air to avoid the explosion.

Not all journalists have been bad on this – just most. 

Surprisingly, CNN’s presidential debate star seems to have grasped some basic economics or reporting. (Maybe even both!) Crowley called out one of the administration’s many liars, er, department heads, pretending the cuts will end the world as we know it – in this case air travel. Crowley had the audacity to tell Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that “your post-sequester total at FAA ops and facilities and equipment is going to be about $500 million more than 2008 and the planes were running just fine.”

When LaHood responded by talking about the dreaded “furlough of air traffic controllers,” Crowley came right back. “Is it true that domestic flights are down 27 percent from pre-9/11 levels and the budget at the FAA is up 41 percent?”

That is the essence of the sequester. Federal budgets seldom really drop and any cut is seen as a crime against nature. Journalists, meanwhile, regurgitate talking points from their statist buddies who think the taxes should take every dollar out of your wallet, and then sell your wallet for good measure.

Almost no one in the press is pointing out that all this budget cutting is just a drop in the bucket compared to what’s really needed to rein in trillion dollar deficits and our $16.5 trillion national debt. Any attempt to do that will require true cuts to our bloated government and its No. 1 fans in the media will again scream the sky is falling and the world is about to end.

Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

View the original article here

Obama's cynical sequester strategy

President Obama has taken the middle class hostage in a thinly veiled bid to hike their taxes.

Having refused to work with Congress to reduce spending by $1.2 trillion over ten years, as he agreed to do when drafting the Budget Act of 2011, the president must now implement $85 billion in across-the-board cuts to defense and non-entitlement government spending.

House Republicans have offered to ease the burdens on the public—by increasing administration flexibility in implementing those cuts in the continuing resolution to keep the government funded past March 27—but the president wants no part of that.

Mr. Obama talks like President Truman but taxes like King George.

Instead, he is campaigning across the country, painting the dire consequences sequestration will impose on all of America if new taxes are not imposed on the wealthy. That is a cynical ploy—Mr. Obama talks like President Truman but taxes like King George.

Taxes imposed at his insistence on January 1 have eliminated 80 percent of the benefits of tax deductions—mortgage interest, state income taxes, local property levies, and the like—for wealthier households. Any substantial gains from further tightening deductions, as President Obama proposes, must come from similarly limiting their use by middle-class taxpayers.

Already, by hiking payroll taxes, the majority of $150 billion in additional revenue obtained on January 1 was extracted from the working poor and middle class families, and federal revenues share of GDP will now substantially exceed its average for the last 40 years.

President Obama is also unwilling to acknowledge government spending is completely out of control. Over the last five years, outlays are up by $1 trillion—three times the amount required by inflation—and tax revenues are short because high rates and burdensome regulations are choking economic growth and jobs creation.

Instead, the president threatens America with the dire scenario of furloughed meat inspectors, food shortages and streets without police. His cabinet secretaries threaten three hour waits in airport security lines, reduced embassy protection and border patrols. The list goes on and on.

Appropriation legislation does limit President Obama’s ability to allocate the cuts among departments. However, even without additional legislation, he has considerable discretion in allocating the 10 percent spending cuts within departments, but he has refused to entertain options that would limit the pain in his pursuit of higher taxes.

For example, the Agriculture Department has one of the largest staffs of economists in the world—surely, safe food is more important than yet another dull research paper. Military bands could also stand down to maintain Marine guards at embassies.

Repeatedly, President Obama has proclaimed that if Congressional Republicans don’t cooperate, spending cuts now could derail our hard won economic recovery. It puzzles why he believes $85 billion in spending cuts could make such a difference, when avoiding those cuts through higher taxes would not.

Whether a second recession occurs is already baked in the cake. Mr. Obama’s $150 billion January tax hikes, and similar rate increases imposed by Democratic governors from Maryland to California, have forced consumers to trim purchases. Retailers and wholesalers are reporting weaker sales traffic and are trimming inventories. Corporate leaders have announced plans to cut new investments and hiring owing to weak demand and more burdensome health care costs and regulations.

When Americans can’t get hamburger at the supermarket and unemployment rises this spring, President Obama will place the blame squarely on Republicans for permitting sequestration, but it is the American people who will bear the burden of his inflexibility, his disregard for the facts and his neglect in undertaking the responsibilities of his office.

Peter Morici is an economist and professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and widely published columnist. Follow him on Twitter @PMorici1.

View the original article here