The Patriot Post® · Hysterics Over 'Cuts'

The Foundation

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” –Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

“During the summer 2011 debt ceiling battle, President Obama’s White House came up with the idea of sequestration. It is a mechanism designed to trigger automatic spending cuts in the event that a congressional ‘super committee’ couldn’t agree to at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction. Congress passed the White House proposal, and Obama signed it into law. And in November 2011, Obama vowed, ‘I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy offramps on this one.’ How times have changed. With the automatic spending cuts scheduled to go into effect March 1, it’s now Obama who is imploring Congress to undo them. As is his wont, he’s resorting to demagoguery to make his case. Surrounding himself with first responders during a speech on Tuesday, Obama predicted a virtual apocalypse if the cuts he once supported now go into effect. ‘Emergency responders like the ones who are here today – their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded,’ he said. ‘Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country. Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off. Tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care for their kids. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.’ … Over a decade, the $1.2 trillion in scheduled cuts are barely more than a rounding error when compared with the $48 trillion the federal government would otherwise spend, according to the Congressional Budget Office. To say the sequester will not be painful for many would be untrue. But if Obama wants to preserve his credibility, he should probably stifle the Chicken Little routine. The historical and continued growth in government spending will not even stop to take a breath, because the ‘cuts’ in spending are actually just reductions in the projected growth of government spending. … If Obama can’t manage an ever-growing budget like this one without turning criminals loose on the population, then perhaps he’s out of his league serving as president.” –The Washington Examiner

Upright

“When the Budget Control Act … was adopted, it called for the automatic cuts to begin on January 1, 2013 – three months into the [U.S. Government] fiscal year. To the surprise of no one, the House and the Senate and the President didn’t want to live with the fruits of their fruitlessness, and so on January 2, 2013 they passed a quick law delaying the effects of sequestration until March 1, 2013 – five months into the fiscal year. That bill was grandly named the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. That’s the one that raised income taxes on rich people and payroll taxes on the rest of us thus providing tax relief to no one. … You might have noticed that the House, the Senate and the President are so worried about this looming March 1 deadline that they are – all 536 of them – on vacation. … Here’s what we know: The Congress and the President are incapable of cutting anything from any program, ever. If the only way to reduce spending is by instituting automatic cuts, then I am for allowing the sequester to take effect and see what happens.” –columnist Rich Galen

“Instead of letting obsolete government programs die, bureaucrats come up with new excuses to keep spending. … The Washington Post reports on a federally supported program that is so bad that even President Obama wants it cut. The Christopher Columbus Fellowship spent 80 percent of its money on overhead. Three Republicans introduced legislation to end it, but the subsidy lives on, because one senator, Thad Cochran, R-Miss., likes it. So America continues to move toward bankruptcy. Instead of addressing that, the politicians will spend more. Instead of announcing 15 new ‘manufacturing’ hubs, the president should just announce 300 million ‘do whatever you want with your own money’ hubs. Then American citizens can do as they please.

That would actually do some good.” –columnist John Stossel

“Many lawmakers view commitment as nothing more than a marriage of convenience that lasts only through Election Day. Where else can a presidential candidate run for office proclaiming ‘Read my lips: no new taxes’ and within months of assuming office, support a massive tax hike on the American people? Politicians including President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania pledged fidelity to the Second Amendment during their campaigns, yet now these Democrats propose and support the most comprehensive attack on gun ownership in generations.” –The Washington Times

“I am unalterably opposed to a bunch of billionaires financing a boss to pick candidates in 50 states. This is the opposite of the Republican tradition of freedom and grassroots small town conservatism. No one person is smart enough nor do they have the moral right to buy nominations across the country. That is the system of Tammany Hall and the Chicago machine. It should be repugnant to every conservative and every Republican.” –Newt Gingrich on Karl Rove’s new PAC

Insight

“The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” –English novelist and journalist George Orwell (1903-1950)

“The more rules and regulations, the more thieves and robbers there will be.” –Father of Taoism Lao-Tzu (570-490 BC)

Demo-gogues

The BIG Lie: “Over the last few years both parties have worked together to reduce our deficits by more than $2.5 trillion.” –Barack Obama (For the record: The deficit has risen by a record $5.19 trillion under Obama’s watch.)

GOP horror show: “The Republicans are poised to shut down government. The Republicans are poised to let the sequestration go forward, which is… ‘Sequestration,’ you know what that word means? What that word means to American people is unemployment, no jobs, take us to recession. It’s not quite an, uh, exact Latin translation. But that’s what it means.” –House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Explanations: “I want to disagree with those who say we have a spending problem. Everyone keeps saying we have a spending problem. And when they talk about that, it’s like there’s an assumption that somehow we as a nation are broke. … We’re the richest nation in the history of the world. That kind of begs the question doesn’t it? If we’re so rich, why are we so broke? Is it a spending problem? No, it’s because we have a misallocation of capital, a misallocation of wealth.” –Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)

Humble brag: “This is something I’ve struggled with throughout my presidency. The problem is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.” –Barack Obama

“This is the most transparent administration in history.” –BO

Gun buying advice: “If you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrel shotgun. You don’t need an AR-15. It’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use and, in fact, you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun. Buy a shotgun!” –2A expert Joe Biden

Oh please: “I don’t think we should [cut congressional pay]; I think we should respect the work we do. I think it’s necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded.” –Nancy Pelosi, who has no dignity

Failing the laugh test: “I think the president’s hallmark is not being on the left or the right, or even in the middle. The president’s hallmark is being practical.” –Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)

Um, what? “I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together. Are we going to be able to do it today to free America?” –Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)

Dezinformatsia

Speaking truth to power: “Obama’s vacations have been rare, brief and regularly interrupted by crises at home and overseas.” –Los Angeles Times columnist Kathleen Hennessey

Sycophants: “Is [Obama], in your opinion, the most inspirational African-American living right now?” –NBC’s Matt Lauer to House Speaker John Boehner

Make believe: “President Obama’s call to increase the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour was one of the more significant proposals he laid out in his State of the Union address…. But $9 an hour is still a far cry from what workers really deserve, a 2012 study finds. The minimum wage should have reached $21.72 an hour in 2012 if it kept up with increases in worker productivity, according to a March study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.” –The Huffington Post

Not exactly: “The longest suicide note in the world is being written by the Republicans if they don’t support immigration reform. If they don’t revamp their image on it, they are truly drinking the potion that’s going to make them disappear.” –PBS’s Mark Shields

That’s racist: “Now if Adam Lanza had walked into a black public school in this mythical South Brooklyn or in the Southside of Chicago, we would probably not be having a sustained national conversation about guns.” –MSNBC’s Touré

Newspulper Headlines:

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Does President Obama Really Believe in Deficit Reduction?” –Time.com

Shortest Books Ever Written: “Obama, Winning the Argument” –The Washington Post

Longest Books Ever Written: “Why Some People Hate Congress” –NationalJournal.com

Out on a Limb: “Christopher Dorner Is NOT a Hero: Opinion” –Press-Telegram (Riverside, CA)

What Would We Do Without Experts?: “Experts Tell Flatulent Flyers: Let Rip” –Agence France-Presse

Bottom Story of the Day: “Nuclear Watchdog Says No Deal Reached With Iran” –New York Times website

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Editor’s Note: Colorado just passed four anti-gun laws, including no campus carry and magazine capacity limits. Here is what some of their lawmakers had to say:

Don’t trust women with guns: “There are some gender inequities on college campuses. This is true. And universities have been faced with that situation for a long time. It’s why we have call boxes, that’s why we have safe zones, that’s why we have the whistles because you just don’t know who you’re going to be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re going to be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around, or if you feel like you’re in trouble and when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop around at somebody.” –CO State Rep. Joe Salazar (D)

“Tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating. Vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone.” –Univ. of Colorado at Colorado Springs giving advice to women on how to handle rapists

“[W]hen Congressman [sic] Giffords was shot and there was a shooting in an Arizona supermarket people who were unarmed took that person down when he stopped to reload. And so there are other ways to address violence and it doesn’t mean that we have our kids exposed to a whole crossfire of multiple folks in a room shooting simultaneously. And that Congressman Gifford’s life was saved and so many others when very valiant folks stood up to defend themselves and protect themselves. And they did it with ballpoint pens.” –CO State Sen. Jessie Ulibarri (D)

Making up history: “Those who believe the Tea Party is a grassroots movement inspired by higher taxes as its name implies will be surprised to learn that it actually developed in part as a result of efforts by the U.S. tobacco industry to oppose the nonsmokers’ rights movement in the 1980s.” –George Washington University Law professor John Banzhaf

Short Cuts

“During his State of the Union address, President Obama described the economy as an ‘unfinished task.’ Yeah, there’s a few parts he hasn’t completely destroyed yet.” –Fred Thompson

“If Dems introduce a bill to keep women from being able to use a gun [to] defend against rapists, they should call it the Kennedy Protection Act.” –humorist Frank J. Fleming

“Governor Rick Perry flew to California to try to woo California businesses to relocate to Texas. The arguments even out. Texans point out that they have no state income taxes, however Californians counter that we don’t have winters, and besides our prisons are so full that if you don’t pay your state income taxes, nothing will happen to you anyway.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“President Obama wants Congress to increase the minimum wage. Believe me, when it comes to doing the minimum for their wage, Congress knows what it’s talking about.” –comedian Jay Leno

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team