If you're reading this it means that you weren't instantly vaporized in the cosmic catastrophe of sequester as prophesied by the Dear Leader, Barack Obama. Naturally this is disappointing to Dear Leader because if the people are not experiencing soul-crushing despair at the slight reduction in the automatic spending increase for 2013 then they won't come after the GOP with flames and pitchforks as he has intended.
In his column for National Review, Charles Krauthammer spells out what Dear Leader was hoping for and how the GOP now have the upper hand:
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.Krauthammer's not the only one noticing that the lack of Sequestrocalypse has made the cynical hysteria strategy quite problematic for Dear Leader. National Journal’s Michael Catalini says Obama’s political gamble on sequestration is backfiring big time:
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.
But even as Obama proclaims dire consequences from the cuts, he is already hedging his bets.As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points out:
"The impact of this policy won’t be felt overnight, but it will be real," the president said.
This was a key concession. With further skirmishes over the debt ceiling and government funding not far off, the White House finds itself in choppy political waters for the first time since Obama won reelection. Its best-case political course hinges on the economy screeching to a halt, assumes that Republicans will again cave on revenues, and relies on the public being on his side. It’s a political gamble that could go bust. …
"There's real risk in saying that the sky is falling … especially if you consider that sequestration is structured to come in slowly," said William Galston, a former adviser to President Clinton who is now with the Brookings Institution. "If after three weeks people look around and the sky is where it traditionally has been. … he has to be careful he doesn’t get too far out on that limb."
With the "fireman first" approach wobbling, a bill granting Obama authority to adjust allocated funding within departments to cover higher priorities will drive a stake through its heart. If Obama vetoes it or the Senate refuses to pass it, House Republicans can rightly say that Democrats want to damage those efforts for cheap political gain. If Obama signs it, then he owns the pain that results from a "fireman first" strategy.It's waaaaay past time for our Dear Leader to experience some real pain. He proposed the sequester. He refused to do anything to stop it and chose instead to demagogue the GOP to the max. This needs to blow up in his face because: karma.
