The Sequester: Is Barack Obama That Crazy Guy On The Street Corner, Wearing A Sign Claiming The World Will End At Midnight?

Planes crash, schools close, houses burn, criminals run free.

Welcome to the “Mad Max” world that President Obama envisions if the federal budget is reduced by 2.3 percent.

Instead, his claim that the $3.6 trillion budget can’t be trimmed by $85 billion without the country collapsing reveals the utter futility of believing he will ever save America from financial disaster. The nation is headed for ruin unless it cuts spending, but the president refuses to do anything about it.


That's Michael Goodwin in today's New York Post, who has no kind words for the president's latest antics

To see how preposterous the claim is, imagine a smaller example — a family with a weekly budget of $100. Under Obama’s math, cutting $2.30 a week would mean the family would have to give up its home, car and food.

It sounds crazy because it is, especially because Obama proposed these cuts in the first place. He knows he’s blowing smoke, so why does he do it?

Sequester -The Video:  "... here at the end of all things..."

Part of Obama’s motive is not, strictly speaking, about the money, but about the chip on his shoulder regarding wealth. Sharpton said Obama told him and other black leaders privately that “he did not get all he wanted from the rich” with this year’s income-tax hikes.

That certainly doesn’t sound like an economic argument. It sounds like retribution, maybe even reparations.


George Will mocks Obama's theater of the absurd as well:

It is, however, inaccurate to accuse the Hysteric in Chief of crying “Wolf!” about spending cuts under the sequester. He is actually crying “Hamster!”

As in: Batten down the hatches — the sequester will cut $85 billion from this year’s $3.6 trillion budget! Or: Head for the storm cellar — spending will be cut 2.3%! Or: Washington chainsaw massacre — we must scrape by on 97.7% of current spending! Or: Chaos is coming because the sequester will cut a sum $25 billion larger than was just shoveled out the door (supposedly, but not actually) for victims of storm Sandy!

Artist's rendition of Sequester: The Day After

Or: Heaven forfend, the sequester will cut 47% as much as was spent on the AIG bailout! Or: Famine, pestilence and locusts will come when the sequester causes federal spending over 10 years to plummet from $46 trillion all the way down to $44.8 trillion!

Or: Grass will grow in the streets of America’s cities if the domestic agencies whose budgets have increased 17% under President Obama must endure a 5% cut!

....Today, while Obama prepares a governmental power grab to combat global warming, sensible Americans, tuckered out with apocalypse fatigue, are yawning through the catastrophe du jour, the sequester. They say: Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the hamsters of sequestration.


Interesting that both Goodwin and Will - neither of whom can be classified as right-wing nuts - both see malice in Obama's grandstanding. One hopes the American people can see it as well - fear of what this man is capable of is probably a more useful emotion right now than fatigue.

Me? I'm just pissed off, 'cause I hate being lied to. Mark Tapscott in the Washington Examiner:

But the lie of sequestration goes even beyond predictable prevarications like LaHood's. The sequestration cuts are from the government's "baseline" budget, which includes built-in spending increases every year.

So what the professional politicians bewail as a spending cut is actually nothing more than a reduction in the amount that spending will increase each year.

Put another way, this whole series of threats that the Pentagon won't be able to defend the nation, passengers will have to suffer three and four hour waits in security lines at the airports (when they are open), women and children will be thrown off Food Stamps, and on and on are ... lies, pure and simple lies.


Every time Obama opens his mouth to speak on the sequester (or anything else, for that matter), he should be preceded by a public service announcement, much like this one given by Leonard Nimoy in a supernatural episode of the Simpsons entitled "The Springfield Files":

Hello. I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is true. 
And by true, I mean false.
 It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth?

The answer is....No.