Supporters of Sequestration Discovery They Have Screwed Themselves

As noted in prior posts, it would be wonderful if all of the lay offs and furloughs that will be the result of the sequester could be reserved for red states and those who support the GOP economic saboteurs in Congress, particularly those in the House of Representatives.  While that unfortunately isn't possible, there is going to be some perverse pleasure to be enjoyed watching many of the cretins who have cheered on the GOP suddenly discover that they have really screwed themselves.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at instances where lunatic members of the GOP base are suddenly having a real reality check.  Am I being perverse in enjoying this?  Perhaps, but these folks DO deserve what they have brought on themselves.  An analysis of state by state cuts can be found here.  Here are article highlights:

The federal budget cuts were still an abstraction as American Eagle Flight 3429 crossed the snow-crusted plains into southwestern Kansas. Kevin Colvin, a construction manager flying in for work, looked out of the window at the tiny airport below.

“They make it sound like, ‘Oh my God! We’re going to die if we make these cuts!’ ” he said, eating a potato chip, the cuts still two days away. “I think it’s a bunch of BS.”

The cuts came into clearer focus Thursday. Garden City Regional Airport would lose its air traffic controllers, saving the federal government $318,756 and leaving pilots to handle landings, takeoffs and weather conditions mostly by themselves.   “Oh,” said Dave Unruh, a retired farmer who heard the news as he waited for a flight to Dallas. “Is that part of the deal?”

By Friday, people in this solidly conservative area faced the reality that it was.

As sequestration dawned, reactions in Kansas’s 1st Congressional District ranged from disbelief to concern to a kind of defiant joy that the $85 billion in mandatory spending cuts had arrived at last. In the 2012 House elections, voters here overwhelmingly backed tea party conservative Tim Huelskamp, who recently hailed sequestration as “the first significant tea party victory” in Washington.

Not everyone here sees it that way. Mayor David Crase and airport director Rachelle Powell spent last week writing letters to Huelskamp and other elected officials urging them to save Garden City’s tower, one of 238 at relatively small airports across the country set to close beginning April 1. Crase said the closure would “undo years of investments” at the local, state and federal level. Powell warned of a decline in flights and associated revenue from fuel or fees or dinners at the popular restaurant Napoli’s at the Flight Deck. Though it was too soon to know, she worried that American Eagle might curtail the only regional jet service in and out of southwestern Kansas  .  .  .  . 

Mostly, Powell was worried about what she described as “a severe negative impact” on airport safety. .  .  .  .  Jeff De Busk, an air traffic control manager and father of six who expects to lose his job, recounted two recent near-collisions — both involving pilots on the wrong radio channel — averted by the tower. “I understand we have to cut the budget,” he said. “But this? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Here were Judy and Earl Kleeman, retirees headed to Florida for a cruise to the Turks and Caicos Islands. “I feel strongly about the need to cut the national debt,” Judy Kleeman said, wondering whether she was willing to fly without the tower. “But I do feel strongly about education, and so many people need help. 

 Sadly, the GOP has become the party of the ignorant, uninformed,racists, religious extremists and bigots.  And it is going to do severe damage to America before it hopefully somehow reforms itself or dies a much needed death.