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Sequestration Cuts? Not In My Backyard, Insist Legislators

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By Bruce Watson

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - FEBRUARY 27: Meals On Wheels of San Francisco driver Jim Fleming loads meals into a van before making deliveries on February 27, 2013 in San Francisco, California. Programs for the poor like Meals On Wheels, which delivers meals to homebound seniors, could be affected if $85 billion in federal spending cuts come down due to sequestration. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

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Justin Sullivan, Getty Images Meals On Wheels of San Francisco driver Jim Fleming loads meals into a van before making deliveries. Sequestion cuts impact discretionary programs — like WIC, TEFAP Administration , Meals on Wheels, Title 1 education, Head Start, law enforcement, juvenile justice, LIHEAP and many others.

At its heart, sequestration isn’t all that complicated: The idea was that, unless Congress could agree on a responsible, intelligent way to balance the budget, deep, across-the-board cuts would go into affect, hitting most government programs. The plan was simple and brutal, the legislative equivalent of a parent’s ultimatum: Play nicely together or I’m taking your toys away. And, to continue the metaphor, Congress refused to play well, its toys were taken away, and billions of dollars of automatic cuts went into effect. Cruel, sure, but as the old saying goes, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Especially because in this case, the “parents” are the same entities as the “children” — the Congress.

In the days since sequestration has started to take hold, however, a rising trend has gripped Congress as a large number of legislators have expressed what TPM’s Brian Beutler calls “Sequestration NIMBYism” — the idea that cuts are fine, as long as they don’t touch the programs that these legislators actually care about. As Beutler puts it:

“Sequestration is intended to be indiscriminate. It requires federal agencies to reduce spending by a certain percentage on each of their programs and activities. That means all House and Senate members are likely to see some consequences in their districts and states. But when those consequences materialize, Republicans either blame the administration or plead for special treatment.”

Beutler cites a few examples, including Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who is complaining about the National Park Service‘s decision to close campgrounds in his state, and Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), who is angry about the closure of an airport in his district. Thune, notably, was not all that energetic about avoiding the sequester: In mid-February, he downplayed the likely impact of the cuts, noting that they only represented about 2 percent of the federal budget. Given his position as chairman of the Senate Republican conference, this wasn’t just an idle comment: Thune was an important player in the decision to avoid a budget compromise.

Thune has also led a group of Republican senators in an attack on one of the most visible sequestration cuts: the decision to dramatically scale back White House tours. The move, which was undertaken as part of an agreement between the Secret Service and the President, will save an estimated $74,000 a week, or almost $4 million a year.

It isn’t hard to see why the Obama administration and the Secret Service decided to stop White House tours: The Secret Service had to swallow sequestration cuts just like every …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance