"Focus shifts to averting government shutdown; GOP talks of moving back March 27 deadline, working on budget" by Tracy Jan | Globe Staff, March 03, 2013
WASHINGTON — The White House has taken a beating in recent days over false claims about sequestration’s origins and exaggerated claims about its impact.
Asked about the odd public spat with Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, who wrote that the sequester originated in the White House despite Obama’s previous claim that Congress came up with it, Sperling yesterday said Republicans were the ones who ensured that it would only contain spending cuts.
Sperling, on “Meet the Press,” evoked the image of the White House being held hostage by Republicans when he compared the sequester to a mugger asking for a victim’s wallet but being offered a watch instead.
“Well, technically, giving your watch was your idea, but it doesn’t really tell the whole story,” Sperling said.
Sperling also backed away from earlier claims by the administration about the swift and onerous effect of the budget cuts. Obama had wrongly said Friday that Capitol janitors and security guards faced an immediate pay cut.
Meaning he lied.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, too, misled the public with his comments about pink slips being issued to teachers in one West Virginia school system....
Yeah, they didn't lie like Lance and friends.
--more--"
Oh, and about those defense cuts:
"GOP unveils proposal to restore some budget cuts; Pentagon, FBI, Border Patrol would benefit" by Andrew Taylor | Associated Press, March 05, 2013
WASHINGTON — Republicans controlling the House moved Monday to give the Pentagon more money for military readiness while easing the pain felt by such agencies as the FBI and the Border Patrol from the across-the-board spending cuts that are just starting to take effect.
Ever notice they always find money for tyranny?
The effort is part of a huge spending measure that would fund day-to-day federal operations through September — and head off a potential government shutdown later this month.
The measure would leave in place automatic cuts of 5 percent to domestic agencies and 7.8 percent to the Pentagon ordered by President Obama Friday night after months of battling with Republicans over the budget.
But the House Republicans’ legislation would award the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments their detailed 2013 budgets while other agencies would be frozen at 2012 levels — and then bear the across-the-board cuts.
The impact of the new cuts was proving slow to reach the broader public as Obama convened the first Cabinet meeting of his second term to discuss next steps....
Translation: The PUBLIC is NO LONGER BUYING the CONSTANT LIES put out by this administration and it's agenda-pushing mouthpiece media!
The latest measure would provide an increase for military operations and maintenance efforts as well as veterans’ health programs but would put most of the rest of the government on budget auto-pilot.
After accounting for the across-the-board cuts, domestic agencies would face reductions exceeding 5 percent when compared with last year. But Republicans would carve out a host of exemptions seeking to protect certain functions, including federal prisons and firefighting efforts in the West, and to provide new funding for embassy security and modernizing the US nuclear arsenal. The FBI and the Border Patrol would be able to maintain current staffing levels.
The legislation would provide about $2 billion more than the current level to increase security at US embassies and diplomatic missions worldwide. Last September, a terrorist attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
A project to repair the Capitol Dome in Washington could stay on track, and NASA would be protected from the harshest effects of the automatic cuts, known in Washington as a sequester.
Why do we even have a NASA now that the space program has been shut down? To lie to us about global warming temperatures?
The across-the-board cuts would carve $85 billion in spending from the government’s $3.6 trillion budget for this year, concentrating the cuts in the approximately $1 trillion allocated to the day-to-day agency operating budgets set by Congress each year.
Those so-called discretionary accounts received big boosts in the first two years of Obama’s presidency when Democrats controlled Congress but have borne the brunt of the cuts approved as Obama and Republicans have grappled over the budget.
So you aren't really losing anything, sigh.
Both Democrats and Republicans for months have warned the cuts are Draconian and would slow the growth of the economy and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs....
Both have said that?
Meanwhile, Maxine Waters is out screaming that cuts could cost 170 MILLION jobs.
Anyone tell Maxine there are only 300 million people in the country?
Obama presided Monday over the first meeting of his new-look Cabinet in a sobering climate of fiscal belt-tightening, urging humane management of spending cuts for communities and families that are ‘‘going to be hurting.’’
But they won't be tightening their belt because their salaries stayed the same.
‘‘We can manage through it,’’ the president told reporters. Obama and members of his Cabinet had been warning for weeks that the cuts would be painful, but they would be slow to take effect, with the first furloughs of government workers not due until next month.
Good Lord, another four years -- hopefully -- of this guy?
Cuts to many programs may go unnoticed entirely....
--more--"
Other things I did notice:
"There could be an estimated 2,100 fewer food safety inspections."
How will we be able to tell? It's not like we have a safe food supply now.
Cost of sequestration hits home in Boston
The Globe is absolutely nothing but a shameless agenda-pusher.
The Globe is absolutely nothing but a shameless agenda-pusher.
Austerity could slow scientific advances in the US
