Sequestration Cuts Causing Scientists to Contemplate Moving Overseas

While the Republican Party has become the anti-knowledge party as a result of it having been hijacked by the Christofascists and moronic members of the Tea Party crowd, it nevertheless does not bode well for America's future that the sequestration cuts caused by GOP intransigence are cause nearly 20% of U.S. scientists to consider moving overseas in pursuit of better funding.  America has long been a leader in scientific research and development, but a mass exodus of research scientists could leave the country in a non-competitive position.  This may be fine with those who choose to leader their lives according to the anonymous writings of Bronze Age herders, but sentient individuals should be deeply concerned.   Here are excerpts from a Huffington Post piece that looks at this worrisome development:

New data compiled by a coalition of top scientific and medical research groups show that a large majority of scientists are receiving less federal help than they were three years ago, despite spending far more time writing grants in search of it. Nearly one-fifth of scientists are considering going overseas to continue their research because of the poor funding climate in America.

The study, which was spearheaded by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and will be formally released next week, is the latest to highlight the extent to which years of stagnant or declining budgets, made worse by sequestration, have damaged the world of science.

More than 3,700 scientists from all 50 states participated in the study, offering online responses in June and July 2013. They offered sobering assessments of the state of their profession. Eighty percent said they were spending more of their time writing grants now than in 2010, while 67 percent said they were receiving less grant money now than they were back then. Only two percent of respondents said they had received money from their employers -- predominantly academic institutions -- to make up for the loss of federal funds.

The drying up of resources has had a damaging effect on the research being conducted, forcing scientists to curtail their projects or trim their staffs.

According to the survey, 68 percent of respondents said they do not have the funds to expand their research operations; 55 percent said they have a colleague who has lost a job or expects to soon; and 18 percent of respondents said they were considering continuing their careers in another country. 

Sequestration is responsible for much of the damage being done to scientific research. The sweeping federal budget cuts have decreased funding for research and development projects across a wide swath of government agencies by $9.3 billion. The $1.7 billion budget cut to the National Institutes of Health alone has meant more than 700 fewer grants were funded this year, NIH Director Francis Collins told The Huffington Post. 

[I]n terms of percentage of gross domestic product, the United States is reducing its investment in scientific research. In fact, of the 10 countries investing the most money in scientific research, the United States is the only country that has reduced its investment in scientific research as a percentage of GDP since 2011."

Failed GOP Policies: Mothballing Aircraft Carriers A Distinct Possiblity

Aircraft carries at the Norfolk Naval Base

No one blathers more about supporting - dare we say worshiping - America than the Republican party, including the blithering idiots in the Tea Party.  Yet because of GOP intransigence and the  budgetary sequester that has occurred because the Congressional GOP refused to conclude a deal with the Democrats and the Obama White House, very real threats to national security and military readiness are looming.   Virgina could be hit very hard, especially because under the dominance of the GOP controlled House of Delegates and Messrs. McDonnell and Cuccinelli, Virginia has made itself anathema to many progressive and innovative businesses.  A vote for the GOP is a vote for economic suicide in Virginia and Tidewater in particular.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the growing possibility that air craft carrier battle groups could be mothballed.  Here are excerpts:

Really? Mothballing aircraft carriers?   The idea floated last week by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel seemed particularly shocking in this Navy town – home to half the nation’s fleet of nuclear flattops, where carrier deployments and homecomings routinely lead evening newscasts.

But defense analysts say people shouldn’t roll their eyes at Hagel’s warning or other drastic changes described last week in the Pentagon’s first formal attempt to detail the long-term effects of sequestration.

If Congress does nothing to mitigate $500 billion in across-the-board defense cuts planned over the next decade, several analysts say, reducing the number of carrier strike groups from 11 is more than just a possibility – it’s almost assured.

“Given the size of the cuts, it’s hard to imagine a scenario that wouldn’t involve cutting carriers,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

[A]nalysts from three other Washington-based think tanks developed plans for how they would deal with sequestration. Every group said it would eliminate at least two carrier strike groups; one analyst said he would cut four. Even if Congress reduced the budget cuts by half, each team of analysts still recommended cutting at least two carrier strike groups.

Aircraft carriers are widely considered America’s best weapon for projecting force across the globe. They’re also the most expensive piece of military equipment ever – one that typically deploys with seven squadrons of multimillion-dollar aircraft, a cruiser, two or three destroyers or frigates and about 5,500 sailors.

“It’s not that carriers aren’t important, it’s that perhaps other systems in the force, even in the Navy, are of a higher priority and deliver more bang for the buck,” said Harrison, noting that he would rather invest in stealthy Virginia-class submarines and unmanned aircraft. “You can try to maintain 11 carriers, but if you don’t have money to deploy them, they won’t be very useful.”

[W]ould aircraft carriers be decommissioned and destroyed, or would the plan involve defueling the nuclear reactors and placing the ships in long-term storage? Huntington Ingalls Industries CEO Mike Petters addressed the hypothetical question Wednesday during a quarterly conference call with Wall Street analysts. The most efficient way to cut the fleet, Petters said, would be to inactivate the next few carriers slated to come into Newport News Shipbuilding for their midlife nuclear refueling.

That would place the aircraft carriers George Washington, John C. Stennis and Norfolk-based Harry S. Truman in the crosshairs.

However you slice it, said retired Vice Adm. Peter Daly, the chief executive officer of the U.S. Naval Institute, fewer aircraft carriers is bad news for Hampton Roads and for national defense.

“Given the level of cuts, I’m not surprised they’re looking at this,” said Daly, the former deputy commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk. “That doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea.”

The irony is that the GOP leaning voters in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake would see the local economy pummeled and their property values drop significantly.  But for the fact that others would be harmed in the process, I'd almost like to see it happen.  Then these cretins and bigots would be reaping what they had sown.

The Loss Of Government Jobs Is Holding Back The Economy

The latest jobs report was welcomed news with unemployment down to 7.5% and 165,000 new jobs.  In addition, the lack luster figures for the two prior months were sharply adjusted upward.  But despite this good news, continued cuts in government employment is undermining the private sector gains.  Also creating further drag on the economy are sequester cuts which in this area are hitting families with 20% pay cuts even as their built in expenses are at their old levels.  We have personal friends suffering this experience right now.  The ultimate irony from it all is that GOP demagogues accuse Obama of being a big spender while it was their moron president George Bush who blew the nation's budget.  A piece in Think Progress looks what the loss of government jobs is doing to the over all economy.  Here are article highlights:

The jobs report out this morning was full of good news: unemployment fell to 7.5 percent as the economy added 165,000 jobs, while big upward revisions to the past two months’ jobs numbers were added. The private sector carried those figures, adding 176,000 jobs in April. Yet the number was dragged down by the loss of 11,000 public sector jobs.

This has been a steadily recurring trend with each monthly jobs report: even when the private sector adds a solid number of jobs, the overall figure is pulled down by losses in the public sector. 741,000 jobs have been lost in the government sector since the beginning of the recovery period in June 2009, with 89,000 gone since this time last year. 

Overall, the government has shed 718,000 net jobs since President Obama took office. While often accused of bloating the government, the trends show exactly the opposite: Obama has overseen a sharp decline in public sector payrolls as compared to his predecessor President George W. Bush, as can be seen in this chart [see chart above] from Calculated Risk.

While government workers have been maligned as lazy paper pushers, many of them perform vital work that benefits their communities. Take, for example, the loss in teaching jobs. “Local government education” jobs, or in other words teachers, dropped by 1,500 last month and have declined by 355,500 since the recovery began.  

The drop in public spending and, in turn, public employment has had big consequences for the recovery. If public sector rolls hadn’t been shrinking so steadily, the unemployment rate would likely be a full percentage point lower. The furloughs and potential job losses from sequestration cuts don’t even show up in these numbers. When the full pain of those cuts is felt later in the year, the trend may look even worse.

The Republicans keep touting austerity but somehow never seem to understand - perhaps they simply don't care - that real lives and real American families are being harmed. Meanwhile, of course, the rich are getting richer.

Senate Bill Includes Funds for Shipbuilding, Won't Stop Civilian Furloughs

(Steve Helber | The Associated Press)

The U. S. Senate has passed a bill that is aimed at blocking sequestration spending cuts that would severely hurt local shipbuilding and repair facilities, particularly Newport News Shipbuilding (see image above), Virginia's largest employer.  The bill, however, will not protect civilian government workers - some 39,000 in Hampton Roads alone - who face furloughs and 20% cuts in their income.  Thus, some local fools who were duped into voting Republican in 2012 by GOP overtures to racist views and religious extremism may well yet get their just deserves for their stupidity and bigotry.  It will be most interesting to see how Scott Rigell, Randy Forbes and Rob Wittman - and Eric Cantor - vote when the bill reaches the House of Representatives.  Here are excerpts from the Virginian Pilot's coverage:

The Senate approved legislation Wednesday to lock in $85 billion in widely decried spending cuts aimed at restraining soaring federal deficits — and to avoid a government shutdown just a week away. President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats rejected a call to reopen White House tours scrapped because of the tightened spending. 

The bill provides more than $3 billion to Newport News Shipbuilding, one of the region’s largest employers, to move forward on significant projects including the refueling of the carrier Abraham Lincoln, the dismantling of the retired carrier Enterprise and the start of construction of a new carrier, the John F. Kennedy. A Senate amendment, promoted by U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., also restores funding for a college tuition assistance program for active-duty service members.

However, the legislation doesn’t provide money to block the likely furloughs of civilian government employees, including as many as 39,000 Navy and Marine Corps civilian workers in Hampton Roads, as part of $85 billion in automatic budget cuts – known as sequestration.

Federal meat inspectors were spared furloughs, but more than 100 small and medium air traffic facilities were left exposed to possible closure as the two parties alternately clashed and cooperated over proposals to take the edge off across-the-board spending cuts that took effect on March 1.

Final House approval of the measure is likely as early as Thursday. Obama's signature is a certainty, meaning the cuts will remain in place at least through the end of the budget year on Sept. 30 — even though he and lawmakers in both parties have criticized them as random rather than targeted.

I can't help but find some satisfaction in the fact that of the 100+ airports that may be closed, most are in red states, especially in the mind-west.  I hope the Neanderthals out there enjoy their long drives to other airports and that their home states feel the impact of their backwardness.

GOP Smackdown: Wonks vs.Politicans

Bill Kristol, Peggy Noonan, Newt Gingrich and John Boehner

As noted any number of times on this blog, the remaining rational Republican/conservative pundits are increasingly distressed with the GOP's refusal to reform itself and face a changing political landscape.  Instead of reform and innovation, elected officials in the GOP continue to listen to the same religious extremists - e.g., the Family Research Council, the U.S. Catholic bishops, and other Christofascist groups - and anti-tax groups such as Grover Norquist's outfit that helped settle the stage for the 2012 election debacle.  A debacle that would have been complete at the national level but for the gerrymandering of Congressional districts.  A piece in Politico looks at the intra-party infighting.  Here are highlights:

The latest front in the battle for the future of the Republican Party: the wonks versus the pols.  Conservative thinkers are increasingly agitated that, four months after a second straight presidential drubbing, GOP officeholders are not taking bold steps to bring a 1980s-style Republican platform into the 21st century.

Almost daily, there is a fresh op-ed or magazine piece from the class of commentators and policy intellectuals urging Republicans to show a little intellectual leg and offer some daring and innovation beyond the old standbys of cutting income taxes and spending. It’s not that the eggheads are urging moderation — it’s more like relevance. The standard plea: The GOP will rebound only when it communicates to working-class and middle-class voters how its ideas will improve their lives.

But there is virtually no evidence that these impassioned appeals for change are being listened to by the audience that matters — Republican elected officials. With few exceptions, most of the GOP leadership in Washington is following a business-as-usual strategy. The language and tactics being used in this winter’s battles with President Barack Obama are tried-and-true Republican maxims that date back to the Reagan era or before. And that, say the wonks, spells political danger and more electoral decline.

Some of the conservative thinkers allow that the politicians are lagging indicators and have time before the next election. But the volume of the grumbling is ratcheting up as the party’s poll numbers continue to fall and the GOP’s fixation on austerity — and only austerity — appears increasingly out of tune.

“The problem with the deficit as an issue is that people care about economic growth more, and the problem with spending cuts is that people like them more in the abstract than in reality,” wrote National Review editor Rich Lowry in a POLITICO column last week, adding: “At times, it seems as if ‘we have a $16 trillion debt’ is the sum total of the party’s argumentation.”

Criticizing GOP inaction on the sequester, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol lashed Republicans in the current issue of his magazine for being “complicit in the failure of political responsibility and national seriousness we’re now witnessing.

As long as the GOP remains beholden to the Tea Party lunatics and religious extremist who have taken over the party base, the pundit and wonk class can rant and complain all they want, but no real change will occur.  Change and innovation do not occur when elected officials are pandering to those detached from objective reality and those who want to turn time back by at least a century.

Virginia to Lose 90,000 Jobs As U.S. Funds Ends

 

Closer to home, Virginia is going to take a major hit from sequestration.  A fact that the idiots - including many locally in Hampton Roads who grab on to slogans without knowledge of the issues, or pro-gun nuts, or religious extremists who allow themselves to be manipulated - seem to have forgotten when they submitted their ballots in November and returned individuals like Scott Rigell, Randy Forbes and Rob Wittman to the House of Representatives.  As is the case with the folks in Kansas in the prior post, many are about to rue their foolishness and gullibility.  A piece in the New York Times looks at what faces Virginia.  Here are excerpts:

The Washington metropolitan area, especially Northern Virginia, is in line to experience the largest economic hit of any region from the $85 billion in spending cuts that President Obama made official late Friday. 

Because the automatic cuts, known as sequestration, fall unevenly across the country, many Americans are greeting them with a shrug. Their nonchalance is heightened because the 2.4 percent lopped from a federal budget of $3.55 trillion is relatively small and will not happen all at once. Moreover, Congressional Republicans have accused the White House of exaggerating the impact for political gain. 

But in Northern Virginia the cuts will be deeply felt, economists said, assuming there is no political deal to undo them, a dimming prospect. The White House said the Defense Department would furlough 90,000 civilian employees based in Virginia, the most of any state, reducing their salaries by 20 percent this year. 

The ripple effect, as those employees pare expenses, put off car purchases and delay buying a home, is expected to be large. Some economists predict that Virginia will slip into recession.

Virginia employment rose in December by only 0.8 percent, half the growth in the nation as a whole, said Christine Chmura, an economist in Richmond.   “If the sequester occurs as it’s currently stated, I would expect the state of Virginia to go into a recession,” she said. 

“the real worry are the young ones,” she added, lower on the government pay scale and living paycheck to paycheck.  Matthew Bourke, a public affairs specialist with the Army, fits that description. He is looking for a part-time job to make up the loss to his salary. “I’m talking the restaurant business, a server, a food runner, anything,” he said. “If you know something, let me know,” he said before jumping on his bus. 

Come November I hope these folks remember that the GOP has brought this on them and that they get out and vote against the GOP in Virginia's 2013 elections.  They can send a strong message to the GOP by voting out Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly and giving control of both houses back to Democrats.  Now that's a message the GOP in Washington would understand.

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.

Sequestration Will Cost 12,000+ Hampton Roads Jobs

Four aircraft carriers, from back to front, the Abraham Lincoln (72), the Enterprise (65), the George H.W. Bush (77) and the Dwight D. Eisenhower (69), tied up at Norfolk Naval Station on Thursday, February 14, 2013. (Steve Earley | Virginian-Pilot file photo)

Certain parts of Hampton Roads strongly supported the Republican Party in the November, 2012 elections.  Now, thanks to the obstructionism and economic sabotage of the GOP controlled House of Representatives, it is estimated that some 12,000+ jobs will be lost in Hampton Roads.  If these GOP supporters are really true to their party's agenda and mantra, they should step forward and volunteer to be among the first to be laid off and furloughed.  Will they do so?  Of course not!  Like their Christofascist allies in the GOP, they are HYPOCRITES.  They only support budget cuts and lay offs if they harm others.  These people wrap themselves in religion, claim to care about children and then  seek to throw the less fortunate under the bus.  And yes, I am talking about the good people who live in areas like Alanton and Little Neck in Virginia Beach and Newport News' "gold coast."  12,000+ families in Hampton Roads will suffer the consequences of GOP extremism.  Here are highlights from a Virginian Pilot article:

Hampton Roads will lose more than 12,000 jobs this year if sequestration is not halted, Old Dominion University economic researchers said. Sequestration is scheduled to begin taking effect later today.

ODU’s Economic Forecasting Project recently projected that the region would add 5,195 jobs in 2013. With sequestration, Hampton Roads will, instead, lose 12,237 jobs, the economists said today.
The researchers also revised their estimate on the regional economic input, or gross regional product. Instead of going up 1.68 percent this year, they said it will decline 0.67 percent.

Sequestration, the economists said, will cost the region more than $2 billion in spending. Nearly $1.9 billion of that is defense-related, the Economic Forecasting Project said.

Already refit and refueling work on the carrier Abraham Lincoln (in the picture above) has been postponed and a carrier deployment has been postponed.  And that's just the beginning of the impact.  The ripple effect on local business will see a multiplier effect.  In another article, the Virginian Pilot notes that the hospital ship Comfort may end up being confined to its wharf:

The naval hospital ship Comfort arrived at its new home base at Norfolk Naval Station this morning on what is supposed to be a brief stopover on its way to a humanitarian mission in South and Central America.

But sequestration could change that. If the across-the-board budget cuts looming over federal spending kick in today, the Comfort’s operations are slated to be canceled, relegating the ship to inaction at the pier.

The 894-foot-long ship is a moving triage center with 12 operating rooms, dental and optometry suites, capability for a CT scanner and hundreds of hospital beds.

The ship is scheduled to head out in early April to carry out Operation Continuing Promise 2013, a four-month humanitarian mission to eight countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean: Costa Rica, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Peru.

Who cares about humanitarian efforts if one is a Republican or Christofascist!

Boehner Halts Talks on Cuts, and House G.O.P. Cheers

The story line in the right wing echo chamber is that sequestration was 100% a White House idea and efforts are being made to blame sequestration, which begins today, on anyone but the Congressional Republicans.  Outside of cuckoo land, all one need do is look at the House GOP's conduct to see which political faction is driving the nation into sequestration.  It is something that the cretins at Newport News Shipbuilding who voted for Mitt Romney and Scott Rigell take the time to remember as they receive their pink slips and notices that they are being laid off.   Ditto for Virginia Beach GOP voters who will hopefully now take a financial hit as well  The New York Times looks at the actual cheering the the House GOP engaged in as the despicable John Boehner ended all talks to avoid sequester yesterday.  Here are article excerpts:

WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner, the man who spent significant portions of the last Congress shuttling to and from the White House for fiscal talks with President Obama that ultimately failed twice to produce a grand bargain, has come around to the idea that the best negotiations are no negotiations.

As the president and Congressional Democrats have tried to force Mr. Boehner back to the table for talks to head off the automatic budget cuts set to take effect on Friday, Mr. Boehner has instead dug in deeper, refusing to even discuss an increase in revenue and insisting in his typical colorful language that it was time for the Senate to produce a measure aimed at the cuts. 

“The revenue issue is now closed,” Mr. Boehner said Thursday, before the House left town for the weekend without acting on the cuts and a Senate attempt to avert them died.

While the frustrations of Congressional Democrats and Mr. Obama with Mr. Boehner are reaching a fever pitch, House Republicans could not be more pleased with their leader. 

“We asked him to commit to us that when the cuts actually came on March 1, that he would stand firm and not give in, and he’s holding to that,” said Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee. “I think Friday will be an important day that shows we’re finally willing to stand and fight for conservative principles and force Washington to start living within its means. And that will be a big victory.” 

Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, said that on the whole, he thought the spending cuts were a welcome development for which Mr. Boehner deserves credit.  

Mr. Boehner seems not only to have engendered the good will of his conference but also to have locked in place the spending cuts Republicans have been fighting for. “That’s a big win, to finally stand firm on cutting spending,” Mr. Scalise said.

 It's more than clear who the economic saboteurs really are.

The GOP: The Stupid Party

With sequestration set to begin tomorrow, the Republican Party looks to be the big loser in the court of public opinion.  Moreover, it seems to be belatedly dawning on the GOP saboteurs that they have unwittingly ceded power to the White House in terms of how many of the budget cuts will be implemented.  It's a case of be careful what you ask for.  Potentially, sequestration will deal the GOP a double whammy: it will get the blame and Obama will have maneuvering room to adjust cuts to his best advantage.  A piece in Politico looks at what the idiots in the GOP failed to consider as they have sought to trash the economy as a means of harming Obama.  Here are details:

House Republicans fear the massive spending cuts set to take effect Friday will result in Congress continuing to cede its constitutional power of the purse.

Republicans are fretting that the $85 billion in cuts will transfer big power to the administration. Lawmakers say President Barack Obama’s administration will have unilateral leeway to shutter federal programs and spend the government’s money without any input from them.

The argument is just emerging, and ignores the idea that many Republicans now support the sequester cuts as a way for the government to tighten its belt, barring any better budget-reduction plan. It also belies the reality that Republicans largely supported the sequester idea to begin with when it first passed Congress as part of debt ceiling negotiations in summer 2011.

But as the spending cuts become real, Republicans are crying foul and worry the sequester will be used to implement a host of Obama’s top priorities.

The GOP fear was cemented this week when the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency freed illegal immigrants who were detained — ICE officials said they did so to save money before the sequester hit. The administration denied involvement, but Republicans were buzzing that the executive branch and agencies will take drastic actions to force the GOP to the negotiating table.

Others think the Office of Management and Budget will shutter programs in certain congressional districts to pressure lawmakers.  “I’ve watched this administration for two years up close and personal, and they will absolutely behave in ways that are intensely political,” Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) said.

As the House faces the reality of the sequester, Republicans are watching with fear.  “Everything is a concern with this administration,” Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio) said. “There’s only so much we can do – everything is a concern.

The transfer of power from the legislative to the executive branch is a continuing problem; lawmakers say Congress is increasingly ceding to the presidency its most precious constitutional authorities, including its power over the purse.

In 2010, Congress forfeited the authority to earmark spending bills after a decade of scandals. Congress gave the Department of Transportation a pot of more than $1 billion for projects across the country. The money wasn’t even earmarked, and there was little congressional oversight.

This week, the Senate Republican leadership proposed giving the president the authority to replace the sequestration bill with one of his own that would restructure spending cuts in a more flexible way. In the House, that proposal doesn’t have legs and is unpopular.

All of this points to another political reality that has taken hold in Washington. If there’s a tough decision to be made, lawmakers don’t want to be anywhere near it.  Having power means taking the blame when voters get mad. Like most of Washington’s dysfunction, the sequestration stalemate can be viewed through a pretty simple prism: No one wants the risk of responsibility for an unpopular policy.

The truth is that the GOP created the current state of affairs by lacking the spine to stand up to the ugliest elements in the party.  Congressional Republicans feared primary challenges more than adverse consequence to the country.  Now they may find themselves twisting on the rope they themselves erected and watching the GOP suffer irreparable damage.  I for one have little sympathy for them.

Thousands of Lost Jobs: The Cost of Sequestration

Barack Obama appeared today at Newport News Shipbuilding and made a strong case locally for demanding that the Congressional Republicans stop playing games with the lives of thousands  - if not millions nationwide - of American families.  Also in the cross hairs of the GOP saboteurs is the nation's military.  Yes, the GOP blathers about "supporting our troops" even as they have sent our service members to their deaths and serious injury in needless wars that were paid for on the equivalent of a credit card.  Now, defense spending will be cut in a meat cleaver manner as opposed to a surgeon's scalpel.  How anyone in the military or the defense industry still believes a word coming out of the GOP noise machine is dumbfounding.  The Virginian Pilot looks at the local impact of the GOP effort to destroy the economy and leave thousands of Americans unemployed.   Here are highlights:

Thousands of blue-collar jobs will be lost if federal lawmakers don't strike a deal by the end if the week to avoid sweeping budget cuts, President Barack Obama told a crowd of about 3,000 shipyard workers this afternoon.

Standing in front of a massive propeller in a cavernous facility used to build submarines, Obama called on Congress to compromise or risk harming the economy in Hampton Roads.

"The main reason I'm here is to call attention to the important work that you’re doing on behalf of the nation’s defense, and to let the American people know that this work, along with hundreds of thousands of jobs, are currently in jeopardy because of politics in Washington," Obama said.

"These cuts are wrong. They're not smart, they're not fair. They're a self-inflicted wound that doesn't have to happen," Obama added at a shipbuilding site in Virginia.

The White House has warned the $85 billion in cuts could affect everything from commercial flights to classrooms to meat inspections. The cuts would slash domestic and defense spending, leading to forced unpaid days off for hundreds of thousands of workers.

At Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia's largest industrial employer, Obama renewed his effort to warn of the dire consequences the cuts could have on military readiness and local economies. He spoke in front of a massive submarine propeller, with workmen and the few female employees watching up from the cavernous assembly floor and down along railings from three open levels above.

"The threat of these cuts has already forced the Navy to cancel the deployment and delay the repair of certain aircraft carriers," Obama said.

Mike Petters , president and CEO of factory parent company Huntington Ingalls, said in an interview that the company will probably "throttle back" plans to hire between 10,000 and 15,000 workers over the next five years because of the budget uncertainty. He said his biggest headache in running the business is the continuing resolution.

Echoing Obama's warnings about the military repercussion were the five members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who traveled to Capitol Hill to say the cuts could impart a serious blow to military readiness. Their appearance marked the fourth time in the last three weeks that top Pentagon leaders have testified before Congress about the cuts.

Yes, you read that right - 10-15,000 workers at Newport News Shipbuilding alone.  Not surprisingly, GOP extremist Congressman Scott Rigell opted to accompany Obama since he likely knows that if sequestration happens and is rightfully blamed on the GOP, he may well not be re-elected in 2014. 

Budget Deadlock Creates Anger at Crucial Navy Shipyard

Today Barack Obama will visit Newport News Shipbuilding in nearby Newport News, Virginia.  This shipyard is crucial to the Navy since it is the only yard that can build atomic powered carriers.  It is crucial to Virginia because it is the state's largest single employer.  And it is about to get severely slammed by the sequestration that begins at week end.  The irony is that GOP Congressman Scott Rigell - one of the GOP extremists pushing the nation towards sequestration - will accompany Obama (as will Bobby Scott).  Both the boyfriend and I have family members who work at Newport News Shipbuilding and who may financial harm as a result of the sequestration cuts.  The other irony is that back in the lead up to the November 2012 elections, many of the less expensive homes in the area of Newport News near the shipyard had Romney and Rigell signs (the expensive homes had Obama signs).  Would that these cretins who supported Romney and Rigell could be the first workers laid off and furloughed.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the growing distress and anger at the shipyard.  Here are highlights which underscore that the GOP doesn't give a tinker's damn about everyday Americans:

As President Obama returned from a Florida golfing trip and Congress was on a Presidents’ Day break last week, Tommy Bassett, a nuclear machinist, was applying for a backup job at Lowe’s.

The carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was supposed to arrive at the massive shipyard here on Valentine’s Day for a multibillion-dollar overhaul that would take years and provide Bassett and some of the other 21,000 shipyard employees with steady work. But the budget deadlock in Washington prompted the Navy to delay the project. For how long, no one seems to know. Whether layoffs are coming — no one seems to know that, either.

Bassett is too anxious to wait to find out. His wife is having their first child in April, and she had to stop working for medical reasons. “If the budget doesn’t come in, they don’t have money for us,” Bassett said. “I haven’t told her yet . . . I didn’t want her to worry.”

Residents are bitter and resentful. It’s difficult to have a conversation without getting an earful of expletives. And there is little patience here for serving as political props in Washington’s latest budget drama.

Newport News sits at the heart of Hampton Roads, a region whose economy and identity are based largely on the tens of thousands of military personnel, contractors and veterans who live and work here. SEAL Team 6 is based in the region. Jets from Naval Air Station Oceana regularly buzz along the Virginia Beach coast.

Newport News is where the Navy makes aircraft carriers and submarines, and this city of 180,000 feels like a company town, where generations of families have found good-paying jobs making something lasting.  Many fear that prideful past and the community it helped build will fall victim to Washington-style pettiness and irresponsibility.

Executives from defense behemoth Huntington Ingalls Industries, which runs Newport News Shipbuilding, say they are disappointed by the delays in the massive, carefully staged Lincoln overhaul project, which will end up costing taxpayers even more later. Other contractors in Hampton Roads have already warned of major potential layoffs.

“The way you keep costs down is to have predictability and continuity — the exact opposite of what we have right now,” said Newport News City Manager Neil Morgan, who keeps close tabs on operations at the shipyard, the city’s “powerhouse employer.”

Johnson wants Obama to come to Hampton Roads and take it straight to his colleagues at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.  “I put it on Congress, I don’t put it on him,” Johnson said. “They’re messing with the military, and I don’t appreciate it. They’re messing with me. He needs to let people know that when he gets down here.”

Yes, many need to get the message that they were played as fools by Republicans in the last election and the now so prevalent racism and religious extremism of the GOP was used  to convince people to foolishly vote against their own best interests.  Many may well be about to pay the price for their foolishness and bigotries and prejudices.

 

Despite GOP Claims, Size of Government Shrinking

It is an interesting phenomenon: as the influence of the Christian Right has increased in the Republican Party the level of lies and outright dishonesty of the GOP and its members in Congress has increased dramatically.  For those who follow conservative Christian and "family values" groups, the phenomenon is actually what one would have expected because no one lies as much or as shamelessly as the "godly Christian" crowd and the professional Christian set which makes a living disseminating lies, hate and discord.  Among the lies favored by the GOP is the myth that government spending has exploded under Barack Obama when in fact the real explosion in spending occurred under Bush/Cheney.  Of late, the GOP claims that sequestration originated with the White House when in fact as evidenced by a recently disclosed e-mail and power point presentation, it originated with John Boehner and the GOP.  And then there is the lie that the size of government is exploding under Obama, yet again it is not true.  In fact, the number of government employees at all levels is shrinking as shown by the chart above (the peak in 2010 coincided with the hiring of large numbers of temporary census workers).   If, sequestration kicks in on March 1, the number of government employees will drop further - as will the number of private sector employees as defense contractors, shipbuilding concerns, and many other market segments lay off workers.  Here are highlights from a piece in the Virginian Pilot:

Republicans and other fiscal conservatives keep insisting on more federal austerity and a smaller government. Without much fanfare or acknowledgement, they've already gotten much of both.

Spending by federal, state and local governments on payrolls, equipment, buildings, teachers, emergency workers, defense programs and other core governmental functions has been shrinking steadily since the deep 2007-2009 recession and as the anemic recovery continues.

This recent shrinkage has largely been obscured by an increase in spending on benefit payments to individuals under "entitlement" programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans benefits. Retiring baby boomers are driving much of this increase.

Another round of huge cuts - known in Washington parlance as the "sequester" - will hit beginning March 1, potentially meaning layoffs for hundreds of thousands of federal workers unless Congress and President Barack Obama can strike a deficit-reduction deal to avert them.

Even as the private sector has been slowly adding jobs, governments have been shedding them, holding down overall employment gains and keeping the jobless rate close to 8 percent, compared with normal non-recessionary levels of 5 to 6 percent that have prevailed since the 1950s.

"It's a massive drag on the economy. We lost three-quarter million public-sector jobs in the recovery," said economist Heidi Shierholz of the labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute. "We're still losing government jobs, although the pace has slowed. But we haven't turned around yet."

Soaring recent government deficits are partially a side effect of the worst recession since the 1930s, which took a huge bite out of tax revenues at the same time spending increased on recession-fighting programs like unemployment compensation and stimulus measures under both Presidents George W. Bush and Obama.

"The problem going forward is one of demographics and rising health care. It is the baby boom generation retiring," said Alice Rivlin, a White House budget director under President Bill Clinton. "It's the fact that everybody is living longer."

The federal budget deficit for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 is estimated to be $845 billion - the first time it's dropped below $1 trillion in five years. But it's on track to rise again as more and more baby boomers retire and qualify for federal benefits and as interest payments on the national debt keep going up.

Republicans oppose any new taxes, even if for closing loopholes rather than increasing rates.

 

As a former Republican myself, I like to believe that the GOP once stood for valuing reason, logic, intellect and some level of honesty.  Those days are gone and the GOP now stands for lies, racism, bigotry and the open embrace of ignorance.  My former compatriots who remain in the GOP truly need to take a good look in the mirror at themselves and honestly ask how and why they remain in the GOP.    Again, I attribute much of the GOP's descent into rank dishonesty to the rise of the Christofascists within the party.  These modern day Pharisees have absolutely no regard for the truth.

It’s Not Obama’s Sequester After All - It Was Authored By the GOP

In several previous posts on this blog it was noted that with sequestration to commence on March 1st the Republican mantra has become that sequestration was the brainchild of the Obama White House.  There's only one problem with the GOP storyline is that it isn't true.  That's right, sequestration actually began with the Congressional Republicans as evidenced by an e-mail and power point presentation from none other than GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner.  This reality needs to be shouted from the mountain tops to educate the general populace that the GOP leaders in Congress are - surprise, surprise - lying (one Hampton Roads local subscriber repeated the lie in a comment on the article I linked to in this morning's post on sequestration).  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the documentation that traces sequestration right back to the GOP members of Congress.  Here are excerpts:

With deep sequestration cuts just days away, Congress is on vacation. But they’ve still got plenty of time to play the blame game.  The latest semantic spin is to call the looming $1.2 trillion in cuts, which could throw the whole economy back into recession, “Obama’s Sequester.” House Speaker John Boehner indulged this approach half a dozen times in a floor speech before he went on break, establishing its place in the talking-points firmament.

There are a couple problems with this tactic, as my colleague Michael Tomasky pointed out Tuesday. Congress passed sequestration before the president signed it, and the whole self-defeating exercise was carried out in response to Tea Party Republicans’ insistence that we play chicken with the debt ceiling, which ultimately cost America its AAA credit rating.

But here’s the thing. I happened to come across an old email that throws cold water on House Republicans’ attempts to call this “Obama’s Sequester.” It’s a PowerPoint presentation that Boehner’s office developed with the Republican Policy Committee and sent out to the Capitol Hill GOP on July 31, 2011. Intended to explain the outline of the proposed debt deal, the presentation is titled: “Two Step Approach to Hold President Obama Accountable.”

It’s essentially an internal sales document from the old dealmaker Boehner to his unruly and often unreasonable Tea Party cohort. But it’s clear as day in the presentation that “sequestration” was considered a cudgel to guarantee a reduction in federal spending—the conservatives’ necessary condition for not having America default on its obligations.

The presentation lays out the deal in clear terms, describing the spending backstop as “automatic across-the-board cuts (‘sequestration’). Same mechanism used in 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.”

• Sets up a new sequestration process to cut spending across-the-board—and ensure that any debt limit increase is met with greater spending cuts—IF Joint Committee fails to achieve at least $1.2T in deficit reduction.

• If this happens, POTUS may request up to $1.2T for a debt limit increase, and if granted, then across-the-board spending cuts would result that would equal the difference between $1.2T and the deficit reduction enacted as a result of Joint Committee.

• Across-the-board spending cuts would apply to FYs 2013-2021, and apply to both mandatory & discretionary programs.

• Total reductions would be equally split between defense and non-defense programs. Across-the-board cuts would also apply to Medicare. Other programs, including Social Security, Medicaid, veterans, and civil & military pay, would be exempt.

• Sequestration process is designed to guarantee that Congress acts on the Joint Committee’s legislation to cut spending.

And that’s pretty much exactly what’s scheduled to start happening on March 1. Democrats could just as easily spin this as “Boehner’s Sequester” or “Cantor’s Sequester” and offer indelible digital evidence to back up their claim.

A slide from the final page of Speaker John Boehner's Powerpoint to House Republicans on July 31st, 2011, obtained by The Daily Beast.

Boehner's full power point can be found here.  Boehner and his fellow Republicans are, simply put, liars.  What's particularly telling is that the increase in the rank dishonesty of the GOP is that to correlates directly with the rise of the Christofascists within the GOP.  No one lies more than the self-congratulatory "godly Christian" crowd and their political whores in the GOP.

Hampton Roads Faces Economic Blow Due to GOP Obstruction

UPDATED: Per a new Virginian Pilot story, ship repair employees could be amoung the first to be laid off:

BAE Systems Ship Repair sent letters Wednesday to employees in Norfolk and four other states saying that they may have to lay off more than 3,500 people if the Navy cuts $4.6 billion in ship repairs and other expenses this year.  As many as 1,625 BAE workers in Norfolk could be laid off. The layoffs would affect skilled ship workers as well as administrative staff.

Who voted for sequestration? Virginia House of Representatives members who voted "YES" to SEQUESTRATION:
Rep. ERIC CANTOR (R)
Rep. Scott Rigell (R)
Rep. Rob Wittman (R)
Rep. Robert Hurt (R)
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D)
Rep. Frank Wolf (R)
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R)

Somewhat belatedly people in Hampton Roads are beginning to wake up to the reality that the region is about to take a severe economic hit if, thanks to the GOP obstructionists and economic saboteurs in both houses of Congress allow sequestration to begin on March 1, 2013.  Senator Tim Kaine and Congressman Bobby Scott were in the region yesterday meeting with the military and major employers like Newport News Shipbuilding to address the likely impacts which will harm thousands of workers who face furloughs or worse.  When interviewed, the always despicable Scott Rigell - one of the three local GOP saboteurs in the House (the others are Randy Forbes and Rob Wittman) - Rigell sought to blame the impending economic harm on the U. S. Senate, conveniently omitting the fact that its due to his GOP cohorts Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and other members of the GOP in the Senate that no solution to sequestration has been reached.  Like most GOP religious extremists, Rigell has no problem lying through his teeth on a constant basis.  Here are excerpts from the Virginian Pilot on the approaching economic harm:

With Congress in recess while two deadlines draw near for the start of major federal budget cuts, including deep defense reductions, two of Hampton Roads’ federal lawmakers were telling constituents Tuesday that significant consequences loom.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott warned constituents during a forum in Newport News that the automatic cuts that begin March 1 would hurt the region’s defense industry and lead to significant cuts in a range of federal services – from meat inspectors to special education programs to air traffic controllers.

Scott argued that new sources of revenue have to be found or Americans will receive fewer government services and the region’s defense-based economy is going to suffer.

The Navy has said it will have to cut $4.6 billion, including ship repair and construction projects, if the budget isn’t increased.

Leaders of the Virginia Ship Repair Association told Kaine on Tuesday that the cuts could result in thousands of layoffs in Hampton Roads and damage a local economy that relies on military spending for almost half its revenue.

Craig Quigley, executive director of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, told Kaine and the ship repair executives who met at a Portsmouth hotel that most residents don’t understand how hard the cuts will hit.  “When real people start getting pink slips in the not-too-distant future, then I think it will finally hit home,” Quigley said.

Scott noted there are several sources of new revenue that could be considered to avoid the cuts, including taxing capital gains and dividends as income, levying an extra tax on those with annual incomes larger than $1 million and getting rid of some tax breaks. Scott has long argued that people would rather support new revenue than cutting favored federal programs and national security.

“Everybody is talking about how bad sequestration is, but if you replace sequestration with $1.2 trillion in other cuts, you have different damage,” he said.  “You can’t cut $1.2 trillion of the budget without cutting Social Security and Medicare.”

One can only hope that as furloughs begin at Newport News Shipbuilding that the cretins who had  Romney and Rigell signs in their yards in neighborhoods near the shipyard are among the first to receive their pink slips (ironically, most of the higher end homes in these very same neighborhoods had Obama signs in their yards).  People need to be calling and e-mailing Messrs. Rigell, Forbes and Wittman and reading them the riot act.

Has the GOP Set A Sequestration Trap for Itself?

While the members of the Congressional GOP continue to prostitute themselves to the ugliest and most greed driven elements of the party base by remaining insistent that taxes increases of any kind are off the table in any deal to avoid sequestration, they may in fact be playing directly into Barack Obama's strategy.  Oh yes, the GOP mouth pieces are bleating and whining that sequestration was originally the White House's idea, but by refusing any deal involving even one dollar ($1) of tax increases - even by closing truly egregious tax loopholes - it is the GOP, not Obama, that looks irresponsible and responsible for sequestration if it takes place.  It goes without saying as well, that it will be the GOP rather than Obama and the Democrats that will be the target of the public - and negatively impacted lobbying forces - wrath.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the GOP's potential self-inflicted head wound if sequestration kicks in a little more than a week.  Here are excerpts:

Let’s grant that this [that sequester was the Obama administration’s idea} is true. But it’s true only because the Republicans were holding a gun to the administration’s head—and besides, the Republicans immediately voted for it. In any case the important thing now is that outside of Fox News land, it’s an unimportant fact whose “idea” it was. The Republicans are partial owners of this idea, and as the party that now wants the cuts to kick in, they deserve to—and will—bear more responsibility for the negative impacts.

[T]hey [the GOP] almost crashed the economy. And they were also clearly the side pushing for drastic spending cuts. Let’s go back quickly over a partial 2011 timeline. In April, Obama spokesman Jay Carney said it was the president’s position that raising the debt limit “shouldn’t be held hostage to any other action.” On May 11, Austan Goolsbee, then Obama’s chief economic adviser, said that tying a debt-limit increase to spending cuts was “quite insane.”

On May 16, the United States went into technical default, but the Treasury Department was able to string things along a few more weeks. Tim Geithner made it clear that the real problem would hit August 1. A key moment, as Scott Lilly of the Center for American Progress wrote in The Huffington Post, came on May 31. That’s when the GOP-run House voted on Obama’s request for a “clean” debt-limit increase. It failed, and all 236 Republicans voted no.

All this time, and right on up to August 1, Republicans were screaming for deep budget cuts, and the administration was saying no. But the Republicans had the leverage because it actually seemed plausible they were crazy enough to push the country into default.

So fine, the White House proposed it. It did so only after months of Republicans publicly demanding huge spending cuts and refusing to consider any revenues and acting as if they were prepared to send the nation into default over spending. In other words, this was the administration’s idea in much the way that it’s a parent’s “idea” to pay ransom to a person who has taken his child hostage. There was a gun to the White House’s head, which was the possibility of the country going into default.

[W]hen it was all put into legislation, it was the Republicans who passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 in the House, with 218 of them voting yes..  .  .  .  Republicans agreed at the time that the sequestration trigger was a good thing—that it would force everyone to get together and agree to a path forward and a long-term budget deal.

But the majority of the people are onto them. And it sure isn’t going to be looking very responsible to people, as the March 1 sequestration deadline approaches, for Republicans to be going before the cameras and saying that the cuts are unfortunate but necessary medicine, or whatever formulation they come up with. They’ve wanted these spending reductions for two years. It hardly matters much who invented the mechanism for the cuts. What matters, as the Republicans will find out, is that the people don’t want them.

My former law school classmate and former Chairman of the GOP, Jim Gilmore sees that the GOP is heading to potential suicide as noted in a Daily Kos post.  Here are highlights:

Republicans who think it's a brilliant political move to refuse to compromise on the sequester are nuts. Don't ask me, ask former Virginia governor and Republican National Committee chairman Jim Gilmore. He says:

“That’s the biggest problem with the Republicans” on Capitol Hill, Gilmore, a former Virginia governor, said this morning over coffee and a ham-and-egg biscuit in Alexandria. “They think spending is the most important thing. It’s not.”

He says he has urged GOP leaders to back down and compromise to prevent the so-called sequester spending cuts from going through – “I keep telling them, you’re going to lose this” – and he has strong words for congressional leaders’ focus on deficit reduction as their primary economy goal.

“Above all things,” he says, “they shouldn’t be talking about debt and deficits. Because the left’s got an answer for them.

That answer would be, raise taxes, which Gilmore says is the opposite of what the economy needs right now – and he’s quite critical of Democrats for pushing tax increases. But spending cuts won’t help the economy either, he says.

Personally, I hope the saboteurs in the GOP suffer fatal self-inflicted wounds.  I also hope that Obama uses the pulpit of the presidency to remind the public that it is the members of the Congressional GOP who made sequestration happen if it indeed happens.

Palmetto Queen Lindsey Graham: Sacrifice Obamacare To Avoid Sequester

I won't mince my words - not that I do very often - when it comes to announcing my contempt and dislike for GOP closet case Lindsey Graham, a/k/a the Palmetto Queen (Graham is from South Carolina, the Palmetto State).  The man is despicable and his whispered about closeted life is the least of them. Now, as the economic saboteurs in the Republican Party are offering a compromise on sequestration: sacrifice the Affordable Health Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare - and millions of Americans in need of healthcare - in exchange for a "deal."   Not to beat a dead horse, but it's yet another example of the GOP's overall feigned religiosity and yet actual absolute utter contempt for the Gospel message.  The two are diametrically opposed, plain and simple.  Here are highlights from a piece in Huffington Post:

To avoid a March 1 sequester, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested on Fox News Sunday that Congress save money by cutting the Affordable Care Act instead.

"Here's my belief: Let's take Obamacare and put it on the table," he said. "People are leaving the private sector because their companies can't afford to offer Obamacare. If you want to look at ways to find $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade, let's look at Obamacare. Let's don't destroy the military and just cut blindly across the board."

The White House recently released a fact sheet detailing the devastating effect a sequester could have on the economy if Congress fails to pass spending cuts by March 1, including a reduction in loan guarantees to small businesses by $900 million. The blame, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace pointed out on Sunday, would likely fall on Republicans, who are digging in their heels to protect tax cuts.
Graham said the blame should fall on President Obama, who "came up with the idea of sequestration." 

Graham, being the lying piece of shit that he is conveniently forgets that Congress, not the White House passed the sequestration legislation.   I personally continue to hope that Graham gets "outed" preferable in a storm involving an under aged boy.  The man is simply despicable.

GOP Senator: Sequester is Going to Happen

In their quest to placate the most insane elements of the Christofascist/Tea Party base of the GOP, members of the Congressional GOP - economic saboteurs in my view - are Hell bent to see sequestration take place.  The message to average Americans?  Bend over and hold your ankles while we rape you and your families and send the U.S. economy back into recession.  How the GOP can think trashing the economy when it will be clear to all but the simple minded (or the insane GOP base) that the GOP is responsible for the ensuing economic damage will burnish the GOP's popularity is mind boggling, but such is the irrationality of today's GOP.   A piece on CNN looks at the GOP prediction that sequestration will become a reality.  For local Kool-Aid drinkers in Hampton Roads - which will be severely hit by cuts in federal spending - I wish the economic pain could be focused on these fools.  Here are highlights from the CNN piece:

Republican Sen. John Barrasso said Sunday the country should be prepared for the sequester and its massive spending cuts to kick in next month, despite Democrats' proposal last week to avert it.

"Let me be very clear - and I'd say this to the president as I say it to you - these spending cuts are going to go through on March 1," the senator from Wyoming said on CNN's "State of the Union."

With less than two weeks to go, lawmakers face another countdown before the largely dreaded cuts are scheduled to begin. Senate Democrats on Thursday proposed a $110 billion measure to once again delay the cuts.

Democrats want to replace the budget cuts, which Pentagon officials say will have drastic effects on the military, with a combination of increased tax revenue from millionaires through the closing of loopholes, ending agriculture subsidies, and reducing defense spending after the war in Afghanistan ends.

But Barrasso, along with other Republicans in the Senate, was not so pleased with the proposal, especially the provision dealing with tax revenue.  "Taxes are off the table," he told CNN's chief political correspondent Candy Crowley. "The American people need to know tax cuts are off the table and the Republican Party is not in any way going to trade spending cuts for a tax increase." The senator said there are "much better ways to do these budget cuts," though he did not mention specific proposals.

Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York sounded optimistic about the issue.  "I think that Democrats have the high ground both substantively and politically and we will win on this issue," he said on "State of the Union."

He argued Republicans have no choice but to "come on board."  "Their arguments are untenable and don't meet the favor of hardly anyone other than themselves and the few whose special interests they're protecting," he added.

It is no surprise that Barrasso would not identify the preferred GOP spending cuts - they all impact the poorest of Americans, social security and Medicare and Medicaid.  Once again, we see the total disconnect between the GOP's claimed championing of Christian values and the total rejection of the real Gospel message.

Obama Versus Rubio - A Stark Contrast

As one would imagine, the political blogosphere is awash with commentary concerning last night's State of the Union address and Marco Rubio's stunningly poor response.  Obama tried to look forward and asked for Congress to act on both new initiatives and matters that have been held hostage by the economic saboteurs in the House GOP.  Rubio in contrast gave a speech that was an inspired retread of a Mitt Romney campaign speech except with even less enthusiasm and sincerity.  As I said in a post last night, if Marco Rubio is the supposed savior of the Republican Party, the party is in even worse shape than one might have thought.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the contrasting visions offered by Obama and Rubio last night.  Here are excerpts:

If you stepped back and looked at the big picture, it was pretty amazing: An African American man stood in the House chamber and gave his fifth State of the Union speech, and then the son of Cuban immigrants gave the opposition party’s response. It was a moment the country could be proud of.  If you focused more tightly on the speeches themselves, however, the earth did not move.

Let me clarify: I thought President Obama’s address was probably the best he had ever delivered in that august setting. All the ritual and ceremony of the SOTU tend to muffle Obama’s rhetoric, but there was ringing clarity in his call for Congress  .  .  .  .   I heard a president determined to do what he can through executive action. He seemed almost resigned to another year of sour gridlock.

Marco Rubio’s GOP response will be remembered for his awkward lunge for the water bottle. That’s a shame, because the speech itself was remarkable. Not in a good way.

At a moment when the Republican Party needs rebranding, Rubio offered nothing new. The thrust of his speech was “government bad, capitalism good.” Yet he recounted how beneficial government assistance has been to his own success. I expected him to resolve the contradiction, but he didn’t even try.  Someday, maybe Rubio will take the leap and begin to outline a 21st-century vision for the GOP. It would be good for the country if he did. Also if he remembered to hydrate.