The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Could Sequestration Be The Tipping Point In The Farce Parade?

Posted on | February 27, 2013 | 34 Comments

by Smitty

I, for one, have been wondering just how much more jacked up our government could get before a total sieze-up. Over at Red State, Rep. Tom Graves points out:

Frankly, the sequester doesn’t do much to stop the growth of spending and government. Let’s say you gain 10 pounds per year, but your 2013 resolution is to only gain 9.8 pounds. You’re not getting smaller; you’re just growing a little slower. The president has chosen to make a mini diet sound apocalyptic, even as our country is nearly $17 trillion in debt.

Nick Gillespie, via Instapundit, expounds:
So, the President is crying Wolf and going on a fear-mongering Blitzer here. *Yawn*. If you noticed the point about the Pentagon, there is still “emergency” spending. I’ll bet you a number of sodas equal to the personal pronoun count in #OccupyResoluteDesk’s next speech that DoD “emergency” spending grows to encompass whatever is removed via sequestration.

George Will noted a few days back:

“Forced”? The Navy did indeed cite the sequester when delaying deployment of the USS Truman. In the high-stakes pressure campaign against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, U.S. policy has been to have two carriers in nearby waters. Yet the Navy is saying it cannot find cuts to programs or deployments less essential than the Truman deployment. The Navy’s participation in the political campaign to pressure Congress into unraveling the sequester is crude, obvious and shameful, and it should earn the Navy’s budget especially skeptical scrutiny by Congress.

Having served in that Navy, I can tell you that Congress is going over that budget, continuously, with a fine-toothed comb and a magnet. Defense is the original federal pork program. I left the Navy, inter alia, because it’s really no fun trying to go to sea when the people aren’t trained and the gear ain’t maintained for want of funding.

The mighty Trifecta, with Tammy Bruce in for Stephen Green:

To get at Whittle’s question starting at ~2:00 the reason BHO threatens safety in lieu of salaries for his bureaucrats is that safety doesn’t buy votes until after the disaster. And in this case, the disaster will be blamed on the Republicans. From BHO’s perspective, what’s not to like? But do watch the whole thing, as Ott finishes beautifully.

Our government is fundamentally unserious. So, no, I don’t think we’ve yet reached the tipping point. But this is a measurable step in that direction. Hence BHO out there on the permanent campaign, wetting himself.

Update: linked at The Lonely Conservative

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Comments

  • jakee308

    There won’t be any sequestration.

    Boehner will cave. Senate Republicans will cave. (and they have no real power to stop anything anyway.)

    This is all sturm and drang to play to the rubes.

    Boehner doesn’t have the balls. (I hope I’m wrong but how likely is it that after 4 years of doing Obama’s bidding at every step, that suddenly he’s going to develop some steel in his spine and tell Obama to bring it on?)

  • http://theothermccain.com smitty

    There will TOTALLY be sequestration, and both a trumpeting of a return to fiscal sanity with the lip, and a redoubling of overspending with the hand.
    You completely mis-underestimate how thoroughly jacked up and decadent our politics are.

  • jakee308

    Oh, Okay. I can see what you mean. I didn’t look beyond the obvious obvious. There was a third level I missed.

    Yeah because it’s only 85 billion there’s not going to be any real pain just a lot of caterwauling. I guess the Repubs think that this will make them look strong to the base?

    My basic premise is right though. There won’t be any real sequestration.
    (see I’m remember about how they talked about it being in the trillions back when they voted for this thing. Which now that I remember it, that was proved to be a lie then.)

    Okay. I stand corrected. The dance will go on and the shrieking, scratching strings and discordant drums will continue.

  • Pingback: About Those Spending Cuts | The Lonely Conservative

  • StrangernFiction

    But he’s really a swell guy.

    Madness

  • Mike G.

    I recall back in my Air Force days using and working on equipment that was made before I was born. We had a Radar that we sold to the Russians in WW2 that they gave back to us.

  • StrangernFiction

    There is only so much the Team R faithful can take, or can be expected to take. For this reason alone, I don’t think the R’s will cave. But I hope they do. The GOP can’t be gone soon enough.

  • StrangernFiction

    Exactly

  • http://opinion.ak4mc.us/ McGehee

    Under sequestration, at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 10, we’ll only set our clocks ahead by 59 minutes and 47 seconds.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Brilliant.

  • jakee308

    Turns out, I win. McConnell’s up there talking about erasing the cuts and letting Obama have the power to decide what to have the authority to make whatever changes HE thinks should happen. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/senate-gop-ponders-shifting-power-to-obama-88149.html?hp=l1

  • JeffS

    That’s the Senate speaking, not the House. So I wouldn’t claim a win just yet.

    But, yeah, you might. The GOP is advertising on Craigslist for a new set of balls.

  • JeffS

    The Dhimmicrats are really ramping up the fear about sequestration. Senator Murray (Dumb-WA), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, has been posting scary graphics on Facebook, echoing Obama’s hysteria and fear mongering.

    That she represents my state remains a shameful matter for me.

    And then we have Representative Ellison (Deceiver-MN) in full batshit crazy, unhinged mode.

  • Finrod Felagund

    Ellison seems to be giving Hank “Won’t Guam tip over” Johnson a run for his money for dimmest bulb in the House.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    What’s Ashley Judd’s campaign site again?

  • Brian

    There is an ad for “Sexy Older Women” that is showing up that crosses the line into NSFW. A younger woman in a micro bikini on her hands and knees with too much of her lower anatomy visible.

  • http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

    You really believe problems with training and equipment in the military is due to a lack of FUNDING? Heh. Try incompetence and corruption.

    There are something like three times the number of flag officers today in the Pentagon alone – physically, with offices IN the building – than it took to win WWII worldwide.

    How much is the Navy spending on “green fuels” now?

  • http://theothermccain.com smitty

    Now, just because there are enough flags to have the top two billets on every warship be a flag officer is not a bad thing.
    Wait a minute. It is.

  • Fixall

    The President and the Administration use Social Media and the MSM to their advantage,painting gloom and doom any way they can. The Republicans have to get techno-smart to compete with these people who are totally brainwashing the American people.

  • http://deadcitizensrightssociety.wordpress.com/ rmnixondeceased

    Too many chiefs and the indians go awanting on training, spares and even breakfast for those deployed to the Stan …

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  • http://deadcitizensrightssociety.wordpress.com/ rmnixondeceased

    How do you get those good ads? All I ever get is gold investing, estate planning and bargain caskets and urns along with funeral home and crematory listings …

  • jsn2

    Obama is the turd in the punch bowl for conservatives, but those libs sure like the taste. The progs are either stupid or insane.

  • jetty

    “the reason BHO threatens safety in lieu of salaries for his bureaucrats is that safety doesn’t buy votes until after the disaster”

    Another win-win situation for Obama. How does he do it?

  • http://opinion.ak4mc.us/ McGehee

    It’s not the medium, it’s the (lack of coherent) message. Every so often a Republican says something that threatens to make sense — but it stops there.

  • http://www.facebook.com/eric.ashley.58 Eric Ashley

    Wellington said something about the hot meal his troops got served being a deciding factor at Waterloo.

  • http://www.facebook.com/eric.ashley.58 Eric Ashley

    Exactimundo. Even if we gave the GOP control of the MSM and the House, Senate, and Presidency, what would they do with it

  • http://deadcitizensrightssociety.wordpress.com/ rmnixondeceased

    An army travels (and fights) on it’s stomach!

  • http://twitter.com/ilovegrover Thane_Eichenauer

    Shhhhh! They don’t need good suggestions.