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Poor Republicans are all sad that sequestration actually affects their districts. In the same phenomenon Scott describes below with Rob Portman now caring about gay marriage because it affects his family, these Republicans think that their district deserves a special dispensation but the rest of the country can rot.
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Is that quote as dumb as it looks on its face? I have a bill to prevent the sequester from hurting any actual people?
FTFH
Note “the president’s cuts”. Their strategy all along has been to force the prsident to make cuts, and then campaign against the Democrats on the grounds that the president made cuts.
Obviously, or they would just do that themselves, which is their job
You’d think that they would have abandoned that strategy after it failed the first few times.
No, no, no. The strategy cannot fail; it can only be failed.
Just like the Republican platform in general. That pig isn’t unpopular, it just needs a little more lipstick and it’ll get multiple prom invitations.
Just Eliminate WASTE!
Of course, one man’s waste is another man’s job and another man’s perfectly legitimate public service.
I don’t doubt that there’s waste and ways to save money. I also don’t doubt that simply shrinking the budget will do nothing to eliminate said waste (and could very well make the situation worse, if you cut down on oversight).
Mister Charlie Pierce has a story about cutting wastefraudandabuse that will make you cry at your desk. Bonus feature is Bob Woodward being a completely awful human being.
I’ve worked with Jon Stein. He’s one of my heroes.
To Paul Ryan, this story is just a charming annectdote. Fuck these fucking fuckers, how can one choose to support such cruelty?
I just wrote to a friend who used to work where Woodward’s source worked. That source reminds me of stories my friend told of the wacky doctor on staff who ordered a gynecology test for a man and the like.
Shorter Farenthold: The OMB simply MUST stop us from slapping ourselves in the face!
‘Generic Conservative Law:’ “Austerity, and cuts to programs that affect me and mine, are unacceptable – and examples of government over-reach.
They are, however, mandatory for thee and thine.”
The new ‘Portman’s Law’ is an offshoot of that: “Something needs to change, because it now affects me and mine.”
Which is itself a corollary to ‘Nixon’s Law:’ “Something is ok, if I’m the one who’s doing it.”
And loosely related to ‘Gingrich’s Law:’ “My right to bang my intern should have no impact on my right to impeach you for getting a BJ from your intern.”
It’s all fine, until the poo-poo hits THEIR ventilator!
This is nothing new. It goes all the way back to caveman days and “Grogg’s Law”: “Grogg want, Grogg get.” Grogg, of course, was an upstanding family man, who valiantly sought out bigger and better rocks and clubs to protect his cave from the Other People in the Other Cave.
“We not need fire! Fire bad! We not need seed! We not having Messican imigrants! We invade next cave, take food!”
But that’s common politics: when it’s time to decide what to cut, each politician does his best to preserve the stuff he (or, better, his voters, at least theoretically) cares about and cut the rest instead.
Sure, but it’s the Republicans who are saying it’s time to cut lest we turn into Greece or some socialist European country yet cry when the White House closes down tours.
This post and the one below really illuminate the mind blowing amount of cognitive dissonance it takes to be a modern, Hannity conservative.
The GOP: Every man for himself!*
*Does not apply to wealthy white folk
Or the people of my district who might get pissed and vote me out of office!
I agree. Whiners should be sequestered.
Groan. Says John Thune:
Yeah, it does seem difficult to say that. Because it’s not true, and we all agree that it’s not true.
What should be difficult to say with a straight face is that, instead of making these cuts, everyone should just eliminate waste – details on which are unspecified.
And yet you manage to do just that.
Are Republicans expecting some kind of govt-Hannukah miracle?
What Thune probably doesn’t realize is that it’s not pure revenue and I wager those campgrounds are operated at a deliberate loss when you factor in expenses like rangers and such, because, you know, public park should be for the people and cheap to visit.
My heart just bleeds. I’m looking at a gross 20%, net 28% pay cut for the next six months (yes,I work for DOD). I’ll be able to absorb it, barely, but others (the GS-4/5/7s of our world) will be looking at a pay mortgage or eat scenario. I’m looking at organizing a team of DIY-ers to assist folks within our agency family with plumbing, electricity, other fixits during these time because we’ll not be able to afford to purchase these services during furlough.
With as many DOD employees as NM has, this will hit our state hard. I have NO sympathy for those who caused this to happen.
Here is an excellent example: cutting DoD’s budget by a lot is a good thing or not?
The cuts are everywhere instead of strategically placed in DOD programs where cuts are needed. It’s a horrible scenario.
At a time of near-8% headline unemployment? With state budgets massively cut back already after several years of recession?
It’s a monumentally stupid idea.
But to think this kinda ties one in to an idea that govt spending during a recession to keep the economy afloat is a Good Thing, and that ideas’s outside the bounds of political discourse, because Massive Deficit Crisis, If-We-Don’t-Hammer-Discretionary-Spending-Hard-Now-In-Twenty-Years-Time-We’ll-Have-To-Decrease-Discretionary-Spending.
Indeed. The government obviously doesn’t create jobs*.
*Except in the district of whatever particular Republican is speaking.
Of course the government doesn’t create jobs, but these cuts of Obama’s sure are destroying them.
Good for you for looking out for fellow employees who can’t take the cuts. We just learned that an acquaintance in DoD with dependents ranging from an infant to his mother has been told he’ll be getting a 45-day notice of a 20% cut, and we’re trying to piece together more income for him to make it through the duration.
Insert sad trombone here
No, this isn’t the same phenomenon at all.
Portman’s case is one where he’s decided to take a stance that is diametrically opposed to the Republican Party Line because he personally is affected. It’s not a political calculation about gaining/losing votes, it’s a personal one based on his own family circumstances. It shows he has a lack of empathy and maybe a lack of imagination (in that he was unable to put himself in someone else’s shoes before this), but it’s definitely not to his political advantage to take the stand he’s taken, given his party’s crazybase.
In this case, this is the Republican party doing what it does. At this point they are terrified that the rubes they’ve been fleecing for over 30 years are going to figure out that when you cut government to the bone, Social Security and Medicare and Department of Defense contracts MUST be cut substantially to actually make an impact. So this is squid ink that they’re throwing up to make sure that the voters in their district hear sound bites of them acting all concerned and blaming the President while not actually, you know, proposing anything to fix the problem (which would involve tax increases and hard decisions about cuts to make – Republicans don’t make hard decisions. The example of Bush the Elder has shown them that making hard decisions is a mug’s game that will get you un-elected so they refuse to actually do it anymore.)
Portman has voted several times against pro-LGBT legislation since his son came out to him. Obviously the political calculation was still there until just now. Why change now? Who knows. Maybe his son shamed him into it. Maybe he finally shamed himself. OR maybe the calculation is that coming out as pro-equality will help him get re-elected in a state that went to Obama by 2 percentage points in 2012 and re-elected Sherrod Brown by even more.
Congress can stop the cuts any time they want to. All they have to do is repeal the sequester bill.
If they wanted to stop the sequestration cuts they would stop the cuts.
Every now and then, one gets what one votes for.
The Republicans of South Dakota and Montana who rely on the National Parks for their sustenance have gotten exactly what they voted for. Let’s see if they learn anything as a result.
Speaking as a Montanan, no. The Goopers in the eastern part of the state are incapable of learning. Interestingly, the districts most heavily impacted by the sequester are heavily Republican. They just cannot stop voting against their self interest.
I would add that both of our senators are (nominal) Democrats. I am not sure how that Teabagger loon in the House slipped through.