The Examiner – by Barry Secrest
The President came out furiously swinging on his return from a golf vacation with Tiger Woods on Monday. However, the thing that has confused a significant proportion of both pundits and news watchers, is the fact that Obama is vehemently attacking a sequestration proposal that he, himself, put forth back in the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations.
In the proposal, The sequestration cuts, which are now required (but could have been avoided had an agreement been reached by mid-December of 2011), set forth a number of mandatory spending cuts that would be automatic if Congress granted any increase in the debt limit thereafter without making any cuts.
These cuts would be applied to any and every program except Medicaid, Social Security, civil and military pay and veterans.
The cuts would be set at the baseline of 2011 spending levels, meaning an annual increase of 3% plus inflation, for all future years, beginning in 2012, of course. The only way to avoid these cuts would be for either a Constitutional balanced budget amendment to be sent to the states or spending being reduced by a greater amount than the debt limit is increased.
The main problem for the President, unfortunately, is the fact that the original provisions were initially proposed by the White House, not the Republicans.
The Budget Control Act of 2011
According to Star Watergate reporter Bob Woodward, it was indeed the White House which proposed the sequestration cuts as a way to finally get a debt limit increase which was signed into law by the President in August of 2011.
Jack Lew, the then White House Office of Management Director and White House Legislative Affairs Director Ron Nabors , at Obama’s approval, went to Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who then put forth the proposal to the congressional Republicans.
The agreement for increasing the debt ceiling was, therefore, finally reached due directly as a result of the sequestration proposal put forth by the President and his White House Staff.
These facts, coupled with Obama’s furious attacks, ostensibly on himself, while also blaming the Republicans, has left many in the media confused with regard to the proper way to address this particular issue. Who, in the mainstream media, wants to call the President either totally confused or worse, a liar?
Shadow-Fighting
The President, in his attack on the sequestration cuts which can clearly be seen in the accompanying video, was both adamant and forceful in his rather scathing attack on both himself and his earlier ideas, while dutifully surrounded by firefighters and other emergency personnel.
Obama angrily stated “these cuts are not smart, they’re not fair, they will hurt our economy, they will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls.”
The question naturally arose, from many who were watching the President’s address, as to why Obama must have offered such a terrible arrangement of cuts, if he himself, thought the cuts to be so utterly horrid, in the first place?
The President then went on an often confusing dissimulation on the programs which would hurt “ordinary American families,” as follows:
First Responders
With a large group of emergency personnel serving as a backdrop for the President’s rancorous speech, the fact that the Federal Government does not employ local, County, nor even State emergency workers, was not lost on those boasting a critical thought process.
Airport Security
The utter contempt of many flying Americans surrounding the TSA’s, who provide federal airport security, would probably mean a prolonged bout of extreme rejoicing rather than fearfulness over any cuts to this particular federal program.
Thousands of Teachers Laid-Off–
Most American teachers are probably wondering how they would be affected by the sequestration cuts since teachers are, once again, employed and paid by the States and not the US government.
Primary and Preventative Medical Care-
Since Social Security and Medicaid cannot be affected according to the sequestration rules, and health care is still primarily provided by private health insurers, many are unsure, perhaps even the President as well, as to what actual health programs could ultimately be affected by the government cuts.
US Navy Deployment
Obama claims that the March 1 cuts have forced a US Navy carrier deployment group to stay in port, however, the President leaves out the fact that the Obama regime had earlier forced over $ 487 billion in Department of Defense cuts while ramping up spending on Obamacare and other social programs.
All in all, as Senator Rand Paul indicated, the $85 billion in cuts which are at the core of these arguments are nothing much more than a cut in the future growth of government spending, with a bout of theatrical histrionics thrown in for effect. Which, in the parlance of the federal government’sbaseline budgeting process, would be correct.
Senator Paul further indicated “there are no real cuts happening over the next ten years.”