57 Terrible Consequences of the Sequester

[Phurfur 70]

We are talking about $85 billion dollars or 2% of our spending in one year. Even after sequestration our spending levels will be $15 billion more than last year but the government is preaching doom and glooom. How long are you going to let your government play you like a fool?

 

If the heads of 20 federal agencies are to be believed, disastrous consequences await if President Obama and Congress fail to reach a budget deal, triggering the automatic, across-the-board cuts known as "sequestration."
Those cuts are slated to begin March 1, and earlier this month, the Senate Appropriations Committee asked agency heads to explain what would happen in such a scenario. Here's what the agency heads warned will occur under a full year of budget sequestration:
MISCELLANEOUS

1. Air Travel Disruption
2. Longer Security Lines at Airports
3. Slower Extreme-Weather Forecasts
4. Greater Risk of Wildfires
5. Pest-Infested Crops
6. Nationwide Meat and Poultry Shortage
7. Prison Lockdowns
8. Slower Gun Background Checks
9. Fewer FBI Agents
10. Immigration Backlog
11. Longer Waits for Passports and Foreign Visas

SOCIAL SAFETY NET, HEALTH, and EDUCATION

12. Neglect for Mentally Ill, Homeless, and Substance Addicted
13. 125,000 Would Be at Risk of Homelessness
14. 600,000 Women and Children Thrown Off WIC
15. 424,000 Fewer AIDS Tests, 7,400 Fewer Patients Could Get HIV Medications
16. No Rent Assistance for 7,300 AIDS Patients
17. 807,000 Fewer Hospital Visits for Native Americans, Hospital Closures
18. Dilapidated Low-Income Housing, Closed Projects
19. No Child Care for 30,000 Kids, No Head Start for 70,000
20. Longer Waits for Disability Payments
21. $725 Million in Cuts for Low-Income and Special-Needs Students
22. Cuts to Schools on Indian Reservations
23. Native American Tribes Would Lose Almost $130 Million

NATIONAL and INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

24. Higher Risk of Terrorism
25. Untranslated Wiretaps
26. Less Surveillance
27. Classified Information Vulnerable to Foreign Spies
28. An Even More Porous Border
29. Untended Nukes
30. U.S. Less Prepared for a 'WMD Incident'
31. FBI Will Eventually Be Using Broken Equipment, Could Have Trouble Tracking Fingerprints
32. 1/3 Cutback in Pacific Naval Presence
33. Reduced Army Readiness
34. No Maintenance for Some Ships and Planes
35. 46,000 Defense Jobs Could Be Lost
36. Some Air Force Planes Can't Fly
37. Less Cybersecurity
38. $1 Billion Cut from Disaster Relief
39. First-Responder Layoffs
40. Coast Guard Operations Cut by 1/4, Drugs Coming In on Boats
41. $500 Million Cut from Foreign Economic and Military Aid
42. $380 Million Cut from Global AIDS Funding
43. Less Security at U.S. Facilities Abroad, Less Protection for Americans Abroad
44. Freed Up Terror Money
45. U.S. Attorneys Will Take 2,600 Fewer Cases

JOBS and ECONOMY

46. Smaller Unemployment Checks
47. 1,200 Fewer OSHA Inspections, Potential for More Workplace Deaths
48. Fewer Mine Inspections
49. No Job Training for Hundreds of Thousands of People, Less Training for Veterans
50. 1,928 Fewer Small Business Loans
51. Slower Reporting on Economic Data, Less Analysis of It

ENERGY and ENVIRONMENT

52. Parks? Can't Use 'Em.
53. 128 Refuges Could Close
54. Less Drilling and Exploration, Offshore and Onshore
55. Fewer Air-Quality Forecasts
56. 1,000 Fewer Environmental Compliance Inspections
57. Less Nuclear Cleanup

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/57-terrible-consequences-sequester/story?id=18551994

[TimmySmith 2,782]

Nothing about locusts?

[Vikings4ever 496]

58. Dogs and cats living together

[RLLD 3,455]

59. Gutter returns to posting at FFT

[hoytdwow 202]

86. Butthurt federal employees who won't get to become a GS 13 this year, even though it's their turn

[Recliner Pilot 61]

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mungwater 588]

86. Butthurt federal employees who won't get to become a GS 13 this year, even though it's their turn

 

Ha, when I was leaving active duty, they civilianized my position, went from a captain to a GS14 and I wasn't allowed to apply for it because I wasnt in line.

[NorthernVike 2,080]

Ha, when I was leaving active duty, they civilianized my position, went from a captain to a GS14 and I wasn't allowed to apply for it because I wasnt in line.

Focking unions

[hoytdwow 202]

Ha, when I was leaving active duty, they civilianized my position, went from a captain to a GS14 and I wasn't allowed to apply for it because I wasnt in line.

what's really funny is that your job was automatically worth the second highest civilian pay grade

[Phurfur 70]

Democratic and Republican governors in Washington on Sunday urged Congress to reach a budget deal before billions in budget cuts kick in this week, warning the cuts will be a job-killer and wipe out post-recession economic gains

 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/24/budget-stalemate-and-spending-cuts-threaten-economic-gains-governors-warn/#ixzz2LqGmGFy7

[nikki2200 4]

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Oh the irony.

 

:lol:

[nikki2200 4]

As for this thread.... maybe they should have passed a focking budget like once in the past four years and then they would be able to decide what programs they felt should get money, and what programs they felt should get cut. But for some ungodly reason they have decided not to do that. Here are the consequences. Oh well.

[Cdub100 3,380]

86. Butthurt federal employees who won't get to become a GS 13 this year, even though it's their turn

I better get my 13

[Recliner Pilot 61]

As for this thread.... maybe they should have passed a focking budget like once in the past four years and then they would be able to decide what programs they felt should get money, and what programs they felt should get cut. But for some ungodly reason they have decided not to do that. Here are the consequences. Oh well.

Reid/Pelosi/Obama.

[Mungwater 588]

what's really funny is that your job was automatically worth the second highest civilian pay grade

 

It was in the protocol office for the commanding general, stupid. Heck our secretary was an 11 as an "operations specialist..". Yeah, answering the phone and doing the calendar

[NorthernVike 2,080]

It was in the protocol office for the commanding general, stupid. Heck our secretary was an 11 as an "operations specialist..". Yeah, answering the phone and doing the calendar

Congrats on making Captain and thank you for your service. Hoyboy doesn't quite grasp how much hard work you had to put in to achieve your rank.

[Phurfur 70]

As for this thread.... maybe they should have passed a focking budget like once in the past four years and then they would be able to decide what programs they felt should get money, and what programs they felt should get cut. But for some ungodly reason they have decided not to do that. Here are the consequences. Oh well.

 

I have been complaining about this for years but I do have one question. Why did you vote for people in 2012 who couldn't pass a budget?

[Mungwater 588]

Congrats on making Captain and thank you for your service. Hoyboy doesn't quite grasp how much hard work you had to put in to achieve your rank.

 

That was years ago, I'm major mung now

[tikigods 76]

I have been complaining about this for years but I do have one question. Why did you vote for people in 2012 who couldn't pass a budget?

 

Are you placing blame on one party?

 

The key to fixing all of this mess is to call a Constitutional Convention and revamp Article I and II. Create a parliamentary system.

 

#problemsolved

[Phurfur 70]

Are you placing blame on one party?

 

The key to fixing all of this mess is to call a Constitutional Convention and revamp Article I and II. Create a parliamentary system.

 

#problemsolved

I am blaming the voting public first and both parties second. HTH

[tikigods 76]

I am blaming the voting public first and both parties second. HTH

 

The voting public is the victim of a system that does not and will not work in the future. People in this country lack critical thinking skills and will eventually turn to dictatorship if the current system is not overhauled.

 

#fact

[Phurfur 70]

The voting public is the victim of a system that does not and will not work in the future. People in this country lack critical thinking skills and will eventually turn to dictatorship if the current system is not overhauled.

 

#fact

 

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville

 

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

- Ben Franklin

 

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

-Thomas Jefferson

 

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. - Alexis de Tocqueville

 

The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.

- U.S. Socialist Party 1949

[NorthernVike 2,080]

That was years ago, I'm major mung now

Sir, sorry Sir. :salute:

[tikigods 76]

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville

 

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

- Ben Franklin

 

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

-Thomas Jefferson

 

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. - Alexis de Tocqueville

 

The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.

- U.S. Socialist Party 1949

 

So you proved my point?

 

#confuzzled

[nikki2200 4]

I have been complaining about this for years but I do have one question. Why did you vote for people in 2012 who couldn't pass a budget?

 

I didn't vote in 2012.

[nikki2200 4]

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville

 

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

- Ben Franklin

 

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

-Thomas Jefferson

 

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. - Alexis de Tocqueville

 

The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.

- U.S. Socialist Party 1949

 

Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin never said those things. I thought we've been through this.

[hoytdwow 202]

. Heck our secretary was an 11 as an "operations specialist..". Yeah, answering the phone and doing the calendar

Thank you for proving my point that government employees are overpaid

[Recliner Pilot 61]

I was watching Obama do his Chicken Little act a while ago and I think the Mayans were just off a few months on their calendar.

 

Seems the end of the world comes this Friday.

[Phurfur 70]

WASHINGTON Congressional Republicans are preparing to counter increasingly dire warnings from President Obama about the impact of automatic budget cuts with a plan to give the administration more flexibility in instituting $85 billion in cuts, a proposal they say could protect the most vital programs while shifting more of the political fallout to the White House.

 

The plan is vigorously opposed by the administration, which said Monday that it would do little to soften the blow to military and domestic programs. But it is also dividing Democrats, with lawmakers from the states facing the deepest cuts signaling that they may be prepared to go along with Republicans if it means avoiding indiscriminate cuts to military programs and social services.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/us/politics/obama-urges-congress-to-find-compromise-on-cuts.html?_r=0

[Phurfur 70]

It turns out the dollars-and-cents impact this year is not nearly what officials have been claiming. While officials typically say the cuts this year add up to $85 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimates actual spending will only fall by $44 billion this year.

The $85 billion figure refers to "budget authority" -- or what the government can allocate this year, but actually spend over several years. So the cuts this year are roughly half what officials have been claiming; further, the brunt of the impact is not expected to be felt for another month, or more.

 

 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/27/economic-armageddon-impact-sequester-may-be-over-hyped/#ixzz2M7laYZWz

[parrot 789]

Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin never said those things. I thought we've been through this.

 

Also,just because someone did say something once upon a time, don't make it true.

 

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. - Alexis de Tocqueville

 

de Tocqueville said this upwards of 200 years ago, yet wealth disparity only continues to grow. Maybe, just maybe, he didn't know what the fock he was talking about. Anybody who makes a blanket statement about how Americans think, is wrong. HTH.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Um no, you are just full of shiot and got called out on it.

 

 

 

 

4 Pinocchios for Arne Duncan’s false claim of ‘pink slips’ for teachers

 

 

 

 

“It just means a lot more children will not get the kinds of services and opportunities they need, and as many as 40,000 teachers could lose their jobs. ... There are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices that they can’t come back this fall.”

 

— Education Secretary Arne Duncan, CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Feb. 24, 2013

 

 

“Yes, there’s a district where it’s happened. But, again, it’s just because they have an earlier union notification than most, so Kanawha County, West Virginia. … In that district, to be clear, it’s Title I teachers and Head Start teachers, so it’s these funding sources that are being cut. Whether it’s all sequester-related, I don’t know, but these are teachers who are getting pink slips now.”

 

 

— Duncan, White House briefing, Feb. 27

 

Duncan’s claim, on one of the Sunday morning shows, that teachers were already getting pink slips because of the looming sequester was actually the second time he had made this assertion.

 

“I was on a call yesterday, people are starting to give RIF [reduction in force] notes,” Duncan said in a meeting with reporters Feb. 21, three days before his appearance on CBS. “Schools are already starting to give teachers notices.”

 

Oddly, however, the Education Department for days was unable to cough up the name of a single school district where these notices had been delivered. Then, on Wednesday, Duncan appeared before the White House press corps and produced a name — Kanawha County in West Virginia — with a major league caveat. “Whether it’s all sequester-related, I don’t know,” he said.

 

Duncan’s spokesman, Daren Briscoe, said in an e-mail that “the information shared on the call was that just over 100 teachers and Head Start teachers had received layoff notices.”

Unlike the dubious figure that “40,000 teachers could lose their jobs” — more on that below — this at least was specific information. So let’s check it out.

The Facts

 

The first thing that was striking about this figure of 100 teachers is that it was higher than the estimate in the state-by-state impact of the sequester released by the White House over the weekend. For the entire state of West Virginia, the White House said, “around 80 teacher and aide jobs [were] at risk.” And yet here, according to Duncan, was a single county with 100 potential layoffs.

 

But as we dug into it, the story got even odder. There were no news reports of pending layoffs. The school board was facing a $4.5 million shortfall, but just last week had landed a big victory worth as much as $3 million when the state Supreme Court ruled it no longer had to help fund the county’s library. The big issue at the moment was a push by the schools superintendent to crack down on teacher absenteeism — not the pending layoffs that the education secretary had announced on national television.

 

In fact, no one in the county seemed to know what Duncan was talking about, including the education reporters who cover the school district for the Charleston, W.V., newspapers. “There’s very little sequestration-related panic, at least on the education side of things,” one reporter said.

Our colleague Lyndsey Layton helped unravel the mystery.

 

She discovered that these were not layoffs, but rather “transfer notices” sent to 104 Title I teachers for reasons unrelated to the sequestration cuts. (West Virginia is considering requiring counties to set aside 20 percent of their budgets for their lowest-achieving schools.) Pam Padon, director of federal programs and Title 1 for the Kanawha County public schools, told Layton that ultimately, five or six jobs might be lost though the state-mandated change. But in the meantime, the notices only mean that teachers might end up with a new assignment.

 

“The major impact is not so much sequestration,” Padon said. “Those five or six jobs would already be gone regardless of sequestration.”

What about Head Start? It turns out that those notices were issued because the county program is not getting automatically renewed but must compete for funding with other districts.

 

In other words, Duncan’s scare story about teacher layoffs — right now, at this moment — was apparently too good to check. If the Obama administration had learned anything about the Susan Rice-Benghazi debacle, you would have thought it was to make sure the talking points for the Sunday shows are rock-solid. Given that Duncan had made this claim once to reporters, couldn’t anyone in his office have bothered to pick up the phone and double-check the information?

 

The administration has been on thin ice with some of its claims about the impact of the sequestration cuts. Duncan’s assertion that “as many as 40,000 teachers could lose their jobs” also appears to be hyperbole.

 

An aide to Duncan described it as a “rough back-of-the-envelope calculation,” derived by dividing the average pay and benefits of a teacher — $70,000 — by the amount — $2.8 billion — that needed to be cut in education programs.

 

But that amounts to false precision. Teacher salaries vary greatly across the nation, and within districts. School districts and states may find many ways to juggle funds or reduce expenses to avoid losing many teachers, which is what has happened during previous periods of financial stress.

 

The American Association of School Administrators this week released a report, based on a survey, that estimates that “at least 37,000 education jobs” would be lost through sequestration. That at least is based on something more than a rough calculation, though of course it is in the interest of this group to sound the alarm.

 

Moreover, note that the group refers to “education jobs,” not teachers. We have previously found that 67 percent of education jobs could be broadly defined as being held by teachers or teaching assistants. That would translate into a reduction of about 25,000 teachers, based on AASA’s survey data.

 

The Pinocchio Test

 

There is little debate that across-the-board spending cuts in education funding will cause pain for some schools and states. But there is no reason to hype the statistics — or to make scary pronouncements on pink slips being issued based on misinformation.

 

Indeed, Duncan’s lack of seriousness about being scrupulously factual undercuts the administration’s claim that the cuts are a serious problem.

Duncan made this claim not once, not twice, but three times. Let this be a teachable moment for him: Next time, before going on television, check your facts.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/4-pinocchios-for-arne-duncans-false-claim-of-pink-slips-for-teachers/2013/02/27/dac86324-8115-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_blog.html

[Phurfur 70]

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned her agency would be forced to furlough 5,000 Border Patrol agents and cut 2,750 customs officers. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is looking at more than $500 million in cuts, scaling back overtime and imposing furloughs up to 14 days this year.

 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/28/border-towns-brace-for-sequester-budget-squeeze/#ixzz2MEdd86V2

 

If sequester goes through we will spend $41 Billion more in 2013 than in 2012.

[Blitzen 0]

So will sequestration have consequences almost as dire overblown as the Millenium bug?

[nikki2200 4]

I saw clips of Obama talking about this today and all the consequences. How embarrassing.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

I saw clips of Obama talking about this today and all the consequences. How embarrassing.

He is President Chicken Little.

 

Fortunately people are starting to catch on.

[nikki2200 4]

He is President Chicken Little.

 

Fortunately people are starting to catch on.

 

It's cringeworthy. It doesn't even make sense. Either he is so stupid he actually believes what he is saying, or he is so arrogant he doesn't care.

 

I mean even the teacher's unions are coming out now saying "WTF is he talking about?" because he is talking about massive layoffs in education. It's bizarre.

[Voltaire 4,558]

Oh, the horrors of belt tightening.

 

Still I'd rather the money come out of entitlement programs than most of this non-defense stuff but whatever. I know the people with their hands in the pockets of the US taxpayer are the ones with the most politically clout.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

Maxine Waters sez Sequestration will cause the U. S. to lose 170 MILLION jobs.

 

Someone should tell her there is only about 140 million jobs in the U. S.

[Blitzen 0]

It's cringeworthy. It doesn't even make sense. Either he is so stupid he actually believes what he is saying, or he is so arrogant he doesn't care.

 

I mean even the teacher's unions are coming out now saying "WTF is he talking about?" because he is talking about massive layoffs in education. It's bizarre.

 

Dogs will be focking cats I tellz ya.