Friday, March 1, 2013

It's All Their Fault

And now that the sequester is here upon us, the doom and gloom from the Whitehouse is at a fevered pitch, for which the hyperbole begins.

The Whitehouse and House Republican failed to come up with a compromise.
So what else is new?

President Obama placed blame squarely on Republican lawmakers at a Friday press conference for failing to stop automatic spending cuts that were to begin kicking in later in the day, calling the cuts "dumb, arbitrary."
Problem with O'Blamo line of thinking is;
  1. It IS HIS party that controls 2/3 of the legislative process
  2. It was Obama's idea.
  3. It's Obama signature at the bottom of the bill, for which is now law.
The president said the impact of the cuts won't immediately be felt, but middle class families will begin to "have their lives disrupted in significant ways." He said that as long as the cuts stay in effect, Americans will know that the economy could have been better had they been averted. 
Problem with O'Blamo line of thinking is;
  1. What exactly will disrupted the middle class lives? He never said.
  2. How can anyone predict "the economy could have been better" when he never said what these cuts will do to slow our economy even more then it is (and has been the last 4 years) now.
  3. The CBO has already said, last fall, that the first half of 2013 would see retarded economic growth and higher unemployment. So is the President trying to use this sequester as an excuse to blame Republicans, when in fact we've known an economic downturn is expected.
Highlights (if you want to call them that) of Obamas banter:
 "The pain, though, will be real, Let's be clear, none of this is necessary It's happening because of a choice that Republicans in Congress have made."
In his own words, again, they are "dumb, arbitrary"

SO then WHY, Mr President, did... you... sign it?
President Barack Obama signs the Budget Control Act of 2011 in the Oval Office, Aug. 2, 2011
And of course, the MSM jumps in on Obama misleading talking points, (corrected link) all to scare the American people. 
Some points here from the linked ABC article that must be corrected:
  • “the sequester will amount to $85 billion over the next 10 months”
False: It will be $44B over the next 10 months
  • “The sequester will mean such awful things because it forces agencies to cut indiscriminately, instead of simply stripping money from their overall budgets.”
False: It is up to each dept head to find whatever cuts they deem necessary to reduce their growth, by 2.4%
  • “According to the Office of Management and Budget, the sequestration law forces agency heads to cut the same percentage from each program”
False: The law requires agency heads to cut the same percentage as everyone else is, from EACH dept budget, at their discretion.
  • “Agency heads do have some authority to "reprogram" funds, rearranging their money to circumvent the bad effects”
True, as I stated above!!!
  • “President Obama and congressional Republicans have each proposed their own ideas to avert the sequester, but the two sides haven't agreed yet.”
Partly true, only the House has passed two bills to avoid this and the Senate did nothing. The President has not been in Washington because he has been busy playing golf with Tiger Woods. 
  
And running around the country giving speeches.

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