About the horrors facing us from the sequester:
Top Senate Republican doubts damage from defense cuts
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By Dana Bash and Ted Barrett, CNN | updated 10:02 AM EST, Tue February 26, 2013
Washington (CNN) – Anticipating possible political backlash if forced federal spending cuts kick in as expected later this week, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican said Monday that he is preparing a message he plans to hit hard: The cuts are not going to have as negative an impact as the Pentagon and others in the Obama administration are saying.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he plans to make the case to other Republicans and the public that despite warnings from the Pentagon that the mandated cuts will be devastating, the overall amount of defense spending will actually still rise.
Cornyn conceded that until now he had been parroting what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta continuously warns — that automatic, government-wide cuts could jeopardize national security.
But the veteran senator said he looked into it and will now argue that even if the cuts go through on March 1, the Pentagon will still see its budget go up.
More at the link.
Your Editor absolutely supports the sequester. He would prefer that it was larger, and that the cuts enforce would be arranged differently, with the majority coming from domestic spending, but the fact, as Senator Cornyn noted, is that Defense spending will still increase, just not as much as antipated.
From another CNN article:
Officials at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and Luke Air Force Base in Arizona on Friday canceled their upcoming air shows, citing both budgetary pressures and the expected consequences of sequestration.
“I cannot in good conscience spend some of our limited resources to host an open house while the Defense Department considers potential civilian furloughs,” said Brig. Gen. Michael Rothstein, 56th Fighter Wing commander at Luke. The open house and air show was scheduled for March 16 and 17.
I have been to air shows at Langley AFB and Oceana Naval Air Station, and they can be awesome, no doubt about that, but they are still luxuries. They were fun Saturday afternoons, but my family and I would still have survived just as well without them.1 The question isn’t why we have to cancel an air show, but why, at a time when we have been borrowing a trillion dollars a year, they were scheduled in the first place.
A statement from the base said officials were taking other money-saving steps, such as deferring non-mission-critical repairs and supply purchases and significantly reducing flying not directly related to pilot training.
“The Air Force has to consider the fiscal challenges affecting the Department of Defense and the nation,” said Col. Korvin Auch, 633rd Air Base Wing commander at Langley. “We’re taking prudent steps now in order to be good stewards of taxpayer resources while focusing on maintaining readiness.”
“Significantly reducing flying not directly related to pilot training” isn’t something that should have been forced by the sequester; prudent decisions on what flights were actually necessary should have been taken not now, but long ago.
Everybody wants to cut waste, fraud and abuse in government spending, but, unfortunately, waste, fraud and abuse don’t come as easily identifiable line items. What Colonel Auch and General Rothstein have done is to have their staffs go through their planed expenditures, to see what could be cut out without harming military readiness, and they found some things that could be cut; they identified waste!
Of course, the air shows can be justified expenditures, for reasons like recruiting and community outreach. But, let’s face facts: every government spending program can be justified by somebody, somewhere, someone who can give you a good reason why a particular program should be continued. And every government spending program has beneficiaries, from people employed by those programs, to vendors who make money off those programs, to people who enjoy those programs. But that a program or expenditure can be justified does not mean that it is a necessity, and the distinction that we have to take, now, is to distinguish between what programs are necessary, and which programs are nice, but are things without which we can still survive.
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- There would doubtlessly be a few people hurt by this, primarily the commercial vendors who show up to sell food and souvenirs. That’s tough for them, but your Editor does not see how making sure a couple of hot dog vendors make money some particular weekend justifies spending a few million dollars on an air show. ↩
At first, with the hype, I thought something big would happen with the sequester. Now the only thing that is big about the sequester is BO’s Big Campaign Style Mouth just stirring things up. From the response to this, it looks like the USA has crisis fatigue. It looks like the economy is tanking again. Last Quarter was negative. If this quarter is negative, we have recession. Frankly whatever is cut, will be restored. Unfortunately what is spent is mostly not mandated in the Constitution. It’s not that a faux “Sequestration” is coming, but real failure of the country that BO has been working steadily for is more likely. Maybe, but I doubt it, BO will come off of 6 to 7 years in campaign mode and be president. But that sad thing is he doesn’t know how to govern, just complain. And the Compliant Press is trying everything they can to keep the Emporer clothed, but all the pinning to keep it together is fraying the cloth.
I have no idea how much it costs to put on an air show. I don’t even know how much “more” it costs than the standard costs of having the planes and crews and support standing around when there is no air show. I also don’t know how much it costs to put on the Daytona 500 but they seem to make money.
But, as a businessman I figure the vendors should be charged rent for their space, the viewers should pay for tickets and if the military had any sense they’d get sponsors from private industry. You know like “The Rolex Air Show”, or “The Citizens Bank Show of Shows”. Ya know guys, just because it’s being done by the government does not mean we can’t make a profit if we do it right. Or at least offset the “additional” costs over and above just having them sit around.
It’s the same thing with everything government does. Like the National Park Service. Everything MUST be kept pristine. Well, pristine my ass build a pavillion with a dozen fast food joints and some souvineer shops and a Bass Pro camping joint then stand back and make enough money to support the park WITHOUT tax money. Hell, private amusement parks do it all day long so who says National Parks can’t?
Twenty five years ago when Philly was having one of it’s “financial crises” I went before the City Council and suggested we sell advertizing on all those damn “city vehicles” which clog our streets. If SEPTA buses do it why not city cars?
The problem we have is government is run by politicians who have never been in business so they are incapable of thinking like a businessman. They’re incapable of asking themselves: “How can the government make money off of this”? Or, at the very least “How can the government defray the costs of this from the taxpayer”. They only ever think of how to spend the taxpayer’s dollars, never on how to make or save the taxpayer’s dollars.
The brilliant mind of a far leftist has revealed itself once again. Maxine Waters proclaimed the sequester will cost America “170 million jobs” Let’s see…our work force is 146 million so to loose 24 million more than are actually working is severe indeed!
What a bunch of funckin morons.
In another brain-fart by our leftist opressors Janet Napolitano says she’s not happy with the sudeden relese of hundreds of “low risk” illegal aliens from detention by ICE. This was done in “anticipation” of cut-backs due to the sequester. Do these treasonous morons realize NOTHING HAS BEEN CUT?
And why would we release illegals? Why not deport their worthless asses?