Hat tip David Bossie at Breitbart
Rest assured that when spending is challenged, President Obama will make sure the public feels the pinch. He won't cut out pork, useless conferences, social programs for his constituents, bring John Kerry home from the Middle East, or, spare the thought, the give up the Affordable Care act. He will shove it in the face of the public. Prime example? Read David Bossie's article in Breitbart on how the World War II memorial was shut down for World War II vets.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/04/Obama-s-disgraceful-insult-to-the-greatest-generation
Even a park ranger has admitted that they have been told "to make life as difficult for people as we can" (Hat tip Weasel Zippers).
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/04/park-ranger-angry-admits-they-were-told-to-make-life-as-difficult-for-people-as-we-can/
They even block off the public's access to Mt Vernon-which is privately run! What's next? Are they going to block off the public's access to the Washington Redskins' stadium until they change their name?
You laugh.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/05/obama-open-to-name-change-for-washington-redskins/?intcmp=latestnews
Maybe Obama can issue one of his famous executive orders.
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I was wondering when Gary would get around to the shutdown and, by extension, the debt limit ceiling.
So we had the sequester.
According to libs/Dems/progressives, the sky would fall and the world would end. Hasn't happened yet. So it is with the shutdown. No indication of national collapse yet. It will be the same thing with the debt limit ceiling unless Obama et al are bound to ruin this country.
The Democratic politics of all this shutdown stuff are evident in the statement by the senior Administration official who was quoted as saying something like "We are winning, so we don't care about the shutdown" and the park ranger who was quoted as saying he and the service were ordered to make life as difficult for people as they could. The action relative to the WWII memorial is quite telling, and I believe demonstrates Obama's true position on, and opinion of, not only the military but this great country.
I guess this is what I do not get regarding furloughs. It appears that the Federal Government breaks down into "essential" and "non-essential" employees, with only non-essential personnel getting furloughed. What gets me is that if these people are really non-essential, then by definition we don't need them in the first place. I understand that some 800,000 have already been furloughed.
As a compromise, we could reduce the Federal work force (by attrition, Siarlys) by half that amount (400,000). The money saved there would go a long way, if not all the way, in funding government shortfalls such that there would be no visible or discernible effects when disagreements like this happen.
And with regard to the debt ceiling, Obama et al act as if we will totally run out of money if we do not increase the debt limit. Nothing, NOTHING, could be further from the truth.
Even in these bad economic times, the Federal government still has about $250 billion in monthly revenues (or $3 trillion annually, roughly 75% of the current total budget) coming in. Of that $250 billion, only about $30 billion (12 % of the available money without an increase in the debt limit, which is scary enough) goes to the interest on the national debt.
Now, I understand that a 25% reduction in government spending is somewhat significant, but that is a far cry from being bankrupt. All that is really necessary is prioritization of the spending of the remaining funds.
If we are worried about out debt and the effects a "default" would have on the "world economy", then all we have to do is take the first $30 billion each month, pay the interest on the debt with it rather than studying the sex habits of the Aedes mosquito or whatever, and thereby prevent default or even any semblance thereof, with no catastrophic consequences possible.
Pick and choose where you are going to cut, and where and where not to spend the remaining revenues based on benefit to the country and the people (which is most certainly not happening now) rather than partisan politics (which is most certainly happening now). Pretty easy arithmetic throughout, definitely no rocket science or nuclear physics involved.
If the Speaker of the House won't allow a vote on funding the government, then the government is out of money. That's sound conservative budgeting. If your paycheck was cut off, you couldn't pay your bills with money you don't have. Y'all want to have your cake and eat it too. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Elwood,
Just learned they have closed the cemetery at Normandy. No word on whether they are patrolling the beaches as well.
So we are supposed to raise the debt ceiling every six months or so to pay our bills? Where do we stop spending?
Obama talks about paying the bills the CONGRESS has run up as if they weren't all his policies and programs all along.
The House has sent over to the Senate over 10 continuing resolutions to fund this or that aspect of the government but the Senate, or rather Harry Reid, refuses to bring them up as they don't include a complete go ahead on Obamacare.
The president refuses to negotiate one item and insists on a "clean" bill that includes Obamacare untouched.
It seems to me that one side is stubborn and refuses to negotiate... not both sides at all. I think this will eventually turn against the president. All other presidents have done some negotiations, think of Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, etc. Only Obama, the true believer, is so smart that every single part of Obamacare is perfect in all respects now.
It must be me but I didn't even notice that 93% of the EPA wasn't "working."What they ought to do is to fund all the furloughed government employees UP to the level of Congressmen and their staffs. There would be a compromise bill... delaying Obamacare for a year... in five minutes. The problem is they don't have any skin in the game. It could go on forever and they will do just fine.
I also don't why the congressmen and staffs aren't forced to use the same Obamacare they foisted on the rest of the country. It is the liberal mentality... I know what is best for you but it doesn't apply to me.
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Typical Siarlys (by the way, what is someone from WI doing using the word "y'all"??).
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives HAS voted on several occasions to fund government totally except for some little kickers relative to Obamacare. It is Harry Reid and the Democrat-controlled Senate, supported by Obama, who will not allow an up-or-down vote on any House bill which contains anything about Obamacare, particularly one which would merely delay implementation for say one year, simply due to the fact that it would almost certainly pass and put Obama in the unenviable position of either having to veto a bill passed by a Democratic majority in the Senate or, in the alternative, sign it and dismantle, temporarily or otherwise, part or all of his signature socialist program.
A portion of one of Siarlys' recent postings was "The President was elected to execute the law. The Affordable Care Act is the law. Attempts have been made to repeal it, but have failed. Now, the minority that wanted to repeal it is throwing a temper tantrum to get their way. If you want to repeal a law, you get a bill passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president".
The point here is that Obama is NOT executing the law fairly, evenly, or objectively. Partisan politics permeate (I love alliteration) his every action on this issue. Regulations are intended to implement a law, not change it. Obama is effectively "repealing " portions of Obamacare with a combination of regulations, executive actions, and other processes (delays, exemptions, etc.), and while he does not constitutionally have the slightest bit of legislative authority, the end results are as if he did. At the same time, he and most/all other Democrats complain about the actions of Republicans to "repeal" or change the law by legitimate legislative means, which is their constitutionally mandated duty, not his. I call that duplicitous.
Seems to me the Republicans did try to compromise when they sent over bills that either delayed Obamacare for a year or tried to lift the special exemptions for Congress and their staffs. Reid chucked them in the wastebasket. If Obamacare is so good, why do Congress and staff need subsidies?
Yes, Miggie. We must pay the bills Congress runs up. Just like if my kid takes my credit card and buys a BMW with it, I must pay the bill. God forbid that I would make him return the car to the dealer.
Exactly so, Gary! Someone else runs up your credit card balances and then says it is your responsibility to pay YOUR bills. It is a deceptive argument.
Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who — if anybody — "wants to shut down the government." But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare.
The Senate chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not include money for ObamaCare. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he wants a "clean" bill from the House of Representatives, and some in the media keep repeating the word "clean" like a mantra. But what is unclean about not giving Harry Reid everything he wants?
If Senator Reid and President Obama refuse to accept the money required to run the government, because it leaves out the money they want to run ObamaCare, that is their right. But that is also their responsibility.
You cannot blame other people for not giving you everything you want. And it is a fraud to blame them when you refuse to use the money they did vote, even when it is ample to pay for everything else in the government.
Obama's FIRST responsibility is to run the government, and not to implement Obamacare as much as he would like to.
The House has sent over to the Senate over 10 continuing resolutions to fund this or that aspect of the government but the Senate, or rather Harry Reid, refuses to bring them up as they don't include a complete go ahead on Obamacare.
This shows that Miggie doesn't understand anything about budgeting or continuing resolutions. The operation of the Affordable Care Act is already funded. No bill sent over the the senate needs to "include a complete go ahead on Obamacare."
What Reid is refusing to do is pass a continuing resolution piecemeal. This is, after all, a continuing resolution. Changes in priorities are handled in BUDGET bills, the ones that set a real budget so we can stop relying on continuing resolutions.
What Reid also would not accept, nor would a substantial majority of senators, is adding language to a continuing resolution effectively repealing a law already on the books. A continuing resolution is no place for such a measure to be decided.
elwood: If you don't understand what "essential" functions are, I hope you never have to decide whether we can send all ambulance drivers and police officers home for 24 hours without exception over a holiday, or conversely, that the clerks at every retail establishment can be fired permanently and not replaced because their functions are not "essential."
Miggie, are you really asking us to believe that EVERY dollar being spent in EVERY agency is "Obama's program"? Like, the Border Patrol is his idea? Also the DEA? the FBI? Enforcing the embargo on Cuba?
The reason no president can really put their stamp on government, and that includes Ronald McDonald, is that the whole thing has so much inertia and is interwoven into so many aspects of our lives that it can't be turned on a dime. Obama is still spending money on priorities of both Bush administrations, as well as Clinton, all allocated by congress, both with Democratic and Republican majorities.
Modern day "conservatives" are people who don't want the government interfering with their Medicare, don't want the government closing military bases in their county, no matter how obsolete and irrelevant to present day national defense needs, and worry that Obama will take away the taxpayer-funded subsidy of their business.
Oh, elwood, I forgot to explain the "y'all" reference. Maybe in California it seems that everyone is chained to a particular area of the country with rigidly different speech patterns, but in the real world this side of the Rockies, there are lots of southerners who moved up north, almost all of them black, and most of the rest Appalachian. So we get plenty of people around here talking southern, and it rubs off if you here it often enough.
Also, about a quarter of my family is from Tennessee, although my mother NEVER talked like that.
My Mom was from NC, but I grew up in Ca so I never inherited her accent. I have always used 'y'all, however.
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