I have been waxing hysterical about the impact of the dreaded Sequestration that will happen next week. I am quite right about that, but the more I look at the matter, it is taking on the aspect of Chicken Little’s admonition to the other residents of the farm yard.
Yes, if the sky fell, it would be bad. I think.
We had a couple different terms for this, back when I was in the budget business. “Gold watching” a budget item meant that if you had to take a reduction to your top line, the first thing offered up to be cut was something really important to the people who were telling us to cut. Pain for pain, so to speak.
The classic was a proposal to reduce the Park Service, for example, which would produce a plan to close the Washington Monument first.
That happened on Tuesday. I listened in astonishment to the President’s assault on Congress on Public Radio after he got back from the golf weekend in Florida.
Longer lines at the airport, unemployed Border Patrol folks, massive hardships on the Federal workforce. And he was surrounded by cops and firefighters, the usual backdrop de jour for these out-of-town campaign speeches.
I have a pal out by the Shenandoah who acidly commented that all those folks- and the teachers- are paid largely by local governments and the Feds (and sequestration) have nothing whatsoever to do with them.
The uncertainty that plagues everyone in Washington at the moment- and which will have real consequences to people like me- is unnecessary.
The Chief Executive has the ability to apportion the cuts however he wishes within the Executive Branch. That is why they call it that.
The President hasn’t made any decisions about that. In fact, the departments were directed to NOT plan for this eventuality as late as Christmas. Now everyone is running around as hysterical as I am.
I am both a realist and a cynic, and realize this is the way this has gone since the Republicans took back the House. Boehner and Company pass a bill about something- fill in the blank- it goes to the Senate, dies, and then the President goes out and makes a Speech about Congress not doing anything.
This is about apportioning blame. The whole Sequester thing originated with alleged Budget Expert Jack Lew. Screw it. No one seems to want to govern, and the mighty USG is lurching from payday to payday like a drunken sailor, meaning no disrespect to my inebriated shipmates.
It is about throwing the GOP out, not governing. Sigh.
Anyway, I was going to write to you about matters ecclesiastic this morning, but I am running out of time, again. There is something interesting about the resignation of the Pope, and a concerned reader has cut me in on some interesting inside scoop about matters that may have contributed to the decision to be the first Holy Father to retire in 700 years.
We will take a walk through that tomorrow. It is an interesting thing, Vatican politics. At least it is not about the sad state of politics here.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com