Stephen Dinen @ The Washington Times:
The Obama administration denied an appeal for flexibility in lessening the sequester’s effects, with an email this week appearing to show officials in Washington that because they already had promised the cuts would be devastating, they now have to follow through on that.
In the email sent Monday by Charles Brown, an official with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Brown asked “if there was any latitude” in how to spread the sequester cuts across the region to lessen the impacts on fish inspections.
He said he was discouraged by officials in Washington, who gave him this reply: “We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that ‘APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be.”
“This email confirms what many Americans have suspected: The Obama administration is doing everything they can to make sure their worst predictions come true and to maximize the pain of the Sequester cuts for political gain,” said Rep. Tim Griffin, Arkansas Republican.
Mr. Brown, the official who sent the email and who is eastern regional director for wildlife services at APHIS, didn’t immediately return a call Tuesday afternoon seeking comment.
APHIS is an agency within the Agriculture Department, and on Tuesday department Secretary Tom Vilsack was challenged on the email at a House committee hearing by Rep. Kristi Noem, who said she hoped the department wouldn’t tie agencies’ hands.
Mr. Vilsack said he hadn’t seen the email, but said agencies are supposed to be trying to find ways to manage the impact of the cuts.
“If we have flexibility, we’re going to try to use it to make sure we use sequester in the most equitable and least disruptive way,” the secretary testified. “There are some circumstances, and we’ve talked a lot about the meat inspection, where we do not have that flexibility because there are so few accounts.”
The administration earlier had warned that supplies of beef, pork and poultry could drop this year because slaughterhouse inspectors will have to be furloughed, and under federal law meat can’t be processed without inspectors present.
Ms. Noem told Mr. Vilsack the email made it sound like the administration was sacrificing flexibility in order to justify dire predictions.
Consider the source: This story originated with the Washington Times—the Unification Church’s heavily subsidized Washington propaganda rag.
Just what “flexibility” is it that people imagine the Obama administration or federal agencies have?
If there were “flexibility,” Congressman Chris Collins of NY wouldn’t be pushing for legislation to grant such flexibility.
Of course, that might only be a contrived occasion for him to trot out a list of wasteful spending examples—items that Congress itself approved at some point. That’s always great fun, but they seldom add up more than an infinitesimal fraction of the actual total dollars in question.
@Greg:
Yep, Greggie, sequestration is going to be horrible. But you can bet Obama doesn’t want the responsibility of choosing which programs will be cut, and where. Because if he were to assume that responsibility, he would also be blamed for the fall out.
But I guess sequestration is not so bad when the government advertises for applicants for 400 jobs today, inspite of threatening to furlough thousands. Maybe Obama can donate to all those TSA workers, who are getting $50 million worth of new uniforms, mainly made in Mexico, BTW, what it costs for him to take tony golf lessons.
Ironic that the TSA is getting new uniforms and the Border Patrol has had their uniform allowance cut.
@retire05, #2:
Things are a bit more complex than that. Do you imagine all federal positions are interchangeable? That an empty Senior Scientist nuclear physicist slot could be handily filled with an extra U.S. Customs attorney, for example?
@Greg:
What evidence do you have that Obama is working to minimize the predicted pain due to the sequester? It appears to me he is working to make a self fulfilling prophecy instead.
GREG
not everyone is a liar like OBAMA AND HIS MINIONS,
IF THE PERSON IS CONCERN AND ASK FOR DETAILS TO BE ANSWER THAT KIND OF LIES FOR HIM TO SPREAD ON OBAMA NAME SO TO MAKE IT RIGHT,
THAT IS CRIMINAL, INCITING OTHER GOOD CITIZENS TO LIE SO TO PLEASE OBAMA,
AND YOU CAN BELIEVE THE MAN HAVING CONCERN,
HOW ABOUT OBAMA RELEASING CRIMINALS, MANY THOUSANDS OF THEM AMONG THE POPULATION,
IS THAT JUST A STORY? NO, WHEN RICK PERRY COME TO EXPOSE THAT DANGER, THERE IS A GREAT
DANGER FROM THE WHITE HOUSE DIRECTLY COMING TO HURT THE PEOPLE,
AND YES THEY WAIT WITH GUNS IN THEIR HOUSE TO DEFEND THEIR OWN,
THIS DOESN’T LIE ABOUT THE WHOLE PATTERN, THAT SOMEONE HAS A SICK BRAIN
ON TOP OF THE LADDER AND WANT TO HEAR HIS MINIONS REPEAT HIS WORDS OF DOOM AND DEATH WISH FOR THE PEOPLE,
@Mully:
The preponderance of evidence over 4 years clearly establishes that an extremist republican minority has been doing everything in their power to discredit the President, to block his every effort—even when he has proposed things they’ve previously advocated themselves—and to destroy confidence both in economic recovery and the long-term future of the nation. Their publicly avowed purpose has been to destroy an administration that was duly elected by a solid majority of American voters—twice—and they apparently don’t care how much economic damage is done in the process. Why should they? The damage isn’t being done to the people they actually represent, is it? Those people have been making out like bandits, while the rest of the nation struggles.
We’re supposed to believe all of this has been out of republican concern for an imbalanced budget. Please. Words are cheap, but when have their actions ever demonstrated actual concern about running up the national debt? They have repeatedly done things that have greatly worsened the problem. Even now—with the nation running in the red as it works its way out of the worse recession since the Great Depression—they would like nothing better than another round of deep, high-end tax cuts, and, of course, a more rapidly escalating defense budget. They would make that all seem more sustainable by withdrawing support from those in our society the least able to make it on their own.
I have several short responses to them about that, most of which would be unfit to commit to print. People will make their feelings known where it counts, however: in the voting booth.
@Greg:
You are like the business owners strong-armed into paying protection to the Mafia that denounce one set of criminals and lavish praise on the criminals in the Mafia because they provide “protection”. Many of those people suffered from a form of Stockholm Syndrome and were unable to recognize the Mafia for what they really were. Just a bunch of thug criminals in expensive suits, extorting the wealth those business owners were creating.
Just because one political party is seemingly facetious about the national debt doesn’t make their points any less true. For comparison’s sake, the Democratic party was entirely against the “outrageous” spending of the Federal government, when it was the Republicans doing the spending, only to turn around and engage in even more egregious spending habits once they gained power.
How does that make the Democratic party any less culpable than the GOP for the financial problems and stress the Federal government is sitting on today? How does that make the Democratic party any more serious, or responsible, than the GOP, in assessing and addressing the problematic levels of national debt?
Hint, it doesn’t. Not one little bit. All you are is an apologist for the Democrats in DC, who cannot see the forest for the trees.
@Greg:
I can smell the hate in your words. Yet you are so wrong. Obama is CREATING more POVERTY not less. Poverty is up under his watch, food stamp usage is at an all time high. You probably see food stamps as help for the poor. I see it as vote buying of the most vulnerable in society by a sleazy political ruling class in an effort to keep power by use of other people’s money. Its entrapment and people like Obama need to entrap people to come out and vote so they can keep their power. Welfare reform, that Bill Clinton was forced into, worked. Yet he did not want it. 10 years after signing it he was out touting its success. Now Obama has done his best to kill it. HE WANTS MORE GOVERNMENT DEPENDENTS. IT KEEPS HIS PARTY IN POWER. Can you say new voter class if we give illegal’s citizenship? It’s a power grab and they don’t care who it hurts.
We saw what it was like during his first two years in office with a total Democrat congress. ZERO OBSTRUCTIONS. Where are those 250 thousand jobs per month we were promised by summer of 2010? Why didn’t the unemployment rate stay below 8 per cent as promised? Why didn’t he cut the deficit in half in his first term as promised? Why didn’t he close Guantanamo Bay in one year as promised? Where did all the money from the stimulus go? How many Soylndra’s do you want before even you say enough? I could go on, but your thirst for lies in sickening. After those two years the country woke up and changed leadership in the house. It’s not to my satisfaction, but almost anyone is better than Nancy Pelosi. Although to you she is probably a great leader as she is to our president as he wants her back at the top spot in the house. She’s barely coherent, yet to a Democrat she’s the best they have. This is another example of how poor this president’s judgment is. I won’t even go into Obamacare here.
Yes Republicans are poor at deficits, but Obama has them finally waking up to the train wreck we are headed toward. No president in the past has floored the spending pedal like this one. Higher food and gas prices are just a symptom of what’s coming. It’s like a warning or thunder in the distance telling a storm is coming. Yet you just want to deride anyone who would challenge your dear leader. A man with no real leadership skills or background of executive experience and it shows. He just likes to demagogue and you drink it up blindly. More taxes, yeah that’ll fix it. Playing class warfare, it’s all he has.
I find it funny Obama has claimed he has already cut 1.4 trillion in government spending. Yet this has been done with no harm at all to the economy or anyone’s job. Yet the 45 billion cut we will see this year due to the sequester is mind blowingly damaging. Even though is just a reduction in the rate of growth and we will spend more this year than last and more next year than this year, it’s a killer if you listen to the president and his minions. That 1.4 trillion cut was just magic now wasn’t it?
It makes no sense to decide that a balanced budget is necessary at all costs at the precise moment the nation is falling into a deep recession—unless you’re a discredited political party that’s out of power, and are mainly worried about the prospects of an economic turn-around on the other guy’s watch.
Republican words and actions haven’t been prioritized to encourage economic recovery—the one thing on which everything else depends. There hasn’t even been a balance between concerns about deficits and recovery.
Their entire focus shifted to debt and deficits the moment Obama was elected.
@Greg:
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that since I support the conservative ideas reflected within the GOP, that I also support blindly what they do while in power. To do so is to suggest that I, and others like me, submit in blind party loyalty like you do with the Democratic party.
Just as the entire focus, from the Democratic party, shifted to how much they could spend and how much they could expand government, once Obama was elected. So I’ll ask again, how does that make the Democratic party any less culpable than the GOP for the financial problems and stress the Federal government is sitting on today?
You are accusing the GOP of doing the exact same thing as the Democratic party, just in reverse, and in so doing, you lose all credibility to provide a rational discourse on the subject. Blind party loyalty doesn’t make you right or wrong, it just means that you are blind.