Sequestration Meeting with Obama Cut Short as McConnell and Boehner Had Flights to Catch After Working Three Days This Week

Unlike previous budget clashes over the last two years, neither Obama or the Republicans showed any interest in trying to negotiate a last-minute deal. Obama said a country like America should not be forced to run its economy making deals on a month to month basis and he is looking for a long-term solution: what he referred to as a balanced approach, a combination of spending cuts and new taxes.

Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) and Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) did the bidding of the Koch Bros and other big donors in a short meeting at the White House on Sequester and then left to catch a plane.  Since Boehner abdicated the role of the House in the Sequestration process to the Senate and GOP Senators made sure no bill passed out of the Senate, it is up to the President to order the cuts throughout the Government.

May I make a few suggestions?

• Stop all Air Force air travel for members of Congress - no more boondoggles on the taxpayers nickle.
• Demand that Congress cut even more then DoD - say 18% which would be double.  Trim their office and committee staffs which have grown over the years since GOP took over under Bush.  My bet is the American people would be happy too see the Congress budget slashed.  If Rand Paul did not use $600K  for office/staff, it is time the rest cut corners.  Sen Rubio (R-FL) going to Israel and Jordan on our nickle right before sequestration shows a total disregard for the American taxpayer.  He is all about Rubio and nothing else just like a spoiled selfish brat.  He votes against Hurricane Sandy relief and then goes to Wall Street to raise money.  
• Cut all emergency aid for states where members of Congress voted against Hurricane Sandy relief
• Shut down Cabinet people testifying to Congress - no need to hold hearings and waste money
• Suspend production of F-35 which has not completed flight test.  DoD lowered the Specs because the F-35 couldn't meet the original specs and now fleet is grounded due to a crack in a fan blade in the engine.  Stop millions going to Lockheed and other big Defense Contractors on programs they are over budget and behind schedule.  Lot to cut at Defense - cannot wait to see SecDef Hagel start slashing unnecessary programs.
• Suspend and cancel all big oil/gas subsidies.  Note:  This should be permanent
• Don't approve Northern Keystone pipeline - not enough inspectors
• Time for GSA who controls all Government buildings/transportation/utilities to cut transportation used by Members of Congress.  Stop reimbursement for travel as well.  Cut back on utilities as Congress doesn't need heat or cooling in the Chambers since they only work three days a week.  BTW, Senate has not approved new head of GSA as they have an acting director since April 2012 like ATF has had an acting director for seven years.

Those are just a few suggestions and could come up with plenty more out of Defense.  Very happy that SecDef Hagel was confirmed before sequestration happened as you are not going to fool him - he knows how Congress and DoD operates.

As someone said on Twitter, the USPS employees want to work six days a week while the GOP in Congress want to work three days a week.  Time for new Dem leadership in the Senate as Reid is almost as bad - only one with a backbone is Nancy Pelosi.  House and Senate Dems are mostly staying in DC to try and get something done.  Reid got snowed by McConnell on the filibuster because of the NRA and the Country is paying for it today because of the Senate had been able to pass a bill instead of not getting 60 votes to pass, the pressure on the House would have been huge on Sequestration.  Reid was played for a fool by McConnell.

Republican House is out of town now as they have spent their three days in DC.  Time to get Friday and Monday off back in their Republican districts where no one can find most of them.  What a bunch of scum who live off the taxpayers of this Country while all they care about is making sure that their big donors keep tax loopholes while the rest of the Country suffers.  Where is the House Budget?  Excuse me, as I forgot that Boehner said let the Senate do it when it comes to Sequestration even when bills dealing with the budget are to originate in the House.  It seems the Constitution that gives the House the primary role in the Budget is just a pesky document until it says something they want like the 2nd amendment.  Even then they have a lack of reading comprehension - a well regulated militia is the State National Guard not the rogue militia that the Tea Party loves.

Speaking of reading comprehension how did the House GOP come up with the fact that taxes were raised for the wealthy when it was the Bush tax cuts expiring.  Big difference between expiring and raising taxes from scratch.  IMHO, taxes for the wealthy should have risen even more.

Republican House members Cantor and Ryan have now taken responsibility for sequestration idea - so much for Boehner blaming Obama.  I am happy to see that Obama has now come out publicly blaming the GOP for 'dumb' and 'arbitrary' spending cuts.  Tea Party is getting what they want with a tanked economy along with slashed Government spending that will hurt seniors, middle class, and children the most, but preserves tax loopholes for the wealthy.

Obama blames Republicans for ‘dumb’ and ‘arbitrary’ spending cuts
By Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian Friday, March 1, 2013 15:44 EST 

President warns US to prepare for drawn-out standoff after futile meeting with congressional leaders over scheduled cuts 

Barack Obama is due to sign an order before midnight on Friday to implement $85bn in spending cuts, a move he described as “dumb” and “arbitrary” and that he blamed on the intransigence of Republicans in Congress. 

Speaking at a White House press conference after a futile meeting with congressional leaders, Obama warned Americans to prepare for a drawn-out confrontation that could last for months and will be painful for working-class people. 

Federal agencies will spend the weekend redrawing their budget plans and beginning the process of sending out letters to federal workers giving them 30 days notice of shorter hours, furloughs and even lay-offs. The White House budget office also has to inform Congress of where the spending cuts are to be made. 

The hardest-hit department will be the Pentagon, which will have to find more than $40bn in savings between now and September, about 9% of its overall budget. But almost every government department, from aviation to the park service, will be hit, with cuts amounting to about 5% of their overall budgets. Only Medicaid and welfare benefits such as food stamps are exempted. 

Obama met Republican congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner and their Democratic counterparts Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi at the White House on Friday morning but it was a largely pointless exercise. The meeting broke-up after less than an hour without any hint of a deal in the offing. 

The impact of the budget cuts, known as the “sequester”, will be felt almost immediately in some areas but most will be a slow burn, not coming into effect until next month. 

Obama, after being asked why he had not been able to push the Republicans in negotiating, said: “I am not a dictator. I’m the president.” He could not force them to sit down in a room to do a deal, he said. “So ultimately if Mitch McConnell or John Boehner say ‘We need to go catch a plane,’ I can’t have secret service block the doorway.” 

“We will get through this. This is not going to be an apocalypse, I think as some people have said,” Obama said. “It’s just dumb. And it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt individual people and it’s going to hurt the economy overall,” he said.

Read More at Raw Story

Robert Reich's article from yesterday details the Sequester and the Tea Party Plot that is driving this.  Remember when you see Tea Party to automatically say Koch Brothers who are behind the Tea Party and have bought and paid for many members of the GOP along with other big donors.  Obstructionism, arrogance, and stupidity are alive and well in today's GOP.  Can you say John Birch Society in action?

The Sequester and the Tea Party Plot  

Robert Reich 

Thursday, February 28, 2013 

Imagine a plot to undermine the government of the United States, to destroy much of its capacity to do the public’s business, and to sow distrust among the population. 

Imagine further that the plotters infiltrate Congress and state governments, reshape their districts to give them disproportionate influence in Washington, and use the media to spread big lies about the government. 

Finally, imagine they not only paralyze the government but are on the verge of dismantling pieces of it. 

Far-fetched?  Perhaps. But take a look at what’s been happening in Washington and many state capitals since Tea Party fanatics gained effective control of the Republican Party, and you’d be forgiven if you see parallels. 

Tea Party Republicans are crowing about the “sequestration” cuts beginning today (Friday). “This will be the first significant tea party victory in that we got what we set out to do in changing Washington,” says Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.), a Tea Partier who was first elected in 2010.Sequestration is only the start. What they set out to do was not simply change Washington but eviscerate the U.S. government — “drown it in the bathtub,” in the words of their guru Grover Norquist – slashing Social Security and Medicare, ending worker protections we’ve had since the 1930s, eroding civil rights and voting rights, terminating programs that have helped the poor for generations, and making it impossible for the government to invest in our future. 

Sequestration grew out of a strategy hatched soon after they took over the House in 2011, to achieve their goals by holding hostage the full faith and credit of the United States – notwithstanding the Constitution’s instruction that the public debt of the United States “not be questioned.” 

To avoid default on the public debt, the White House and House Republicans agreed to harsh and arbitrary “sequestered” spending cuts if they couldn’t come up with a more reasonable deal in the interim. But the Tea Partiers had no intention of agreeing to anything more reasonable. 

They knew the only way to dismember the federal government was through large spending cuts without tax increases. 

Nor do they seem to mind the higher unemployment their strategy will almost certainly bring about. Sequestration combined with January’s fiscal cliff deal is expected to slow economic growth by 1.5 percentage points this year – dangerous for an economy now crawling at about 2 percent. It will be even worse if the Tea Partiers  refuse to extend the government’s spending authority, which expires March 27. 

A conspiracy theorist might think they welcome more joblessness because they want Americans to be even more fearful and angry. Tea Partiers use fear and anger in their war against the government – blaming the anemic recovery on government deficits and the government’s size, and selling a poisonous snake-oil of austerity economics and trickle-down economics as the remedy. 

They likewise use the disruption and paralysis they’ve sown in Washington to persuade Americans government is necessarily dysfunctional, and politics inherently bad. Their continuing showdowns and standoffs are, in this sense, part of the plot.   

(snip) 

I suggest the President forget about a “grand bargain.” In fact, he should stop talking about the budget deficit and start talking about jobs and wages, and widening inequality – as he did in the campaign. And he should give up all hope of making a deal with the Tea Partiers who now run the Republican Party.Instead, the President should let the public see the Tea Partiers for who they are — a small, radical minority intent on dismantling the government of the United States. 

As long as they are allowed to dictate the terms of public debate they will continue to hold the rest of us hostage to their extremism.

 Read More from Robert Reich

If that is not enough to make your blood boil, then read the real truth about the founding of Tea Party that has been discovered during an investigation.  The results are going to surprise you but when you connect the dots, it makes sense.

IMHO Koch Brothers, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Scaiffe Foundations, Pete Peterson and others who have loyalty to the John Birchers are behind what is happening to the Nation right now.  These big wealthy donors want unions destroyed along with the minimum wage and middle class to have an elitist group of people with all the money who run the Country while we get the scrapes.  Right now President Obama is standing in their way along with Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in the Senate like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others who are fighting for the Middle Class against the wealthy GOP donors.

We need to make our voices heard in 2014 and kick out the Tea Party not only from the Congress but from the State Houses.  It is time for a coalition to form of like minded citizens no matter the party who see the danger coming from the hard right and Tea Party members of Congress.  All the various groups working together can defeat the Tea Party and, in turn, the wealthy Republican donors who are driving this campaign to wreck America for their own selfish reasons.

Fiscal Cliff Facts: Three US Senators Gave $500,000,000 Loophole to Amegen Pharmaceutical

Senators McConnell (R-KY), Baucus (D-MT), and Hatch (R-UT), Bi-partisan Senate "perpetrators," used the fiscal cliff at the end of 2012 to give a $500,000,000 break to Amgen, a pharmaceutical company from Thousand Oaks, CA, who just pleaded guilty to fraud. 

Term "despicable" describes these three Senators who should resign immediately from the Senate. Nothing will happen though since this has become a way of life for Senators and some members of the House where anything goes in order to get donations. We know what is being paid openly, but how much do these dishonest members of Congress receive that never sees the light of day?  The lack of honesty and integrity is permeating the halls and offices of the Capitol today as the wealthy are protected by their puppets in the Senate and House.

Bill Moyers did an excellent job of covering this investigative story from The New York Times along with his interview with Congressman Peter Welch (D-VT) below.  Moyers gives an insight into those members of Congress who are as disgusted as a lot of us with what we are all seeing today by some members of Congress who are on the take in exchange for getting money for their wealthy donors.

On Twitter last night it was announced both the right and left in Kentucky are out to oust Minority Leader McConnell from the Senate.  They are going to work together to make it happen.  Now that is called a bi-partisan effort and shows how corrupt McConnell has become when both sides can agree.  Are the Koch Brothers going to rush in with big bucks to try and save his re-election campaign where he already has over $7M?  Would bet that most of the $7M donated to McConnell came from wealthy donors who through their lobbyists want payback.

The more you read about this $500 million of our tax dollars going to Amgen, the madder you get.  This part jumped out that we have three US Senators giving loopholes to a company, Amgen, who was just convicted of fraud and had to pay over a $700M fine:

So the trail winds deeper into the sordid swamp beneath that great Capitol dome, a sinkhole where shame has all but disappeared. As reporters Lipton and Sack remind us, just weeks before this backroom betrayal of the public interest by elected officials and the mercenaries they have mentored, Amgen pleaded guilty to fraud. Look it up: fraud means trickery, cheating and duplicity. Amgen agreed to pay $762 million in criminal and civil penalties; the company had been caught illegally marketing another one of its drugs. 

The fact that their puppet master had been the subject of fines and a massive federal investigation mattered not to its servile pawns in the Senate, where pomp and circumstance are but masks for the brute power of money.

From Bill Moyers site comes the details (excerpted) of the Amgen rip off of the American taxpayer:

Foul Play in the Senate 

January 25, 2013
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship 

The inauguration of a president is one of those spectacles of democracy that can make us remember we’re part of something big and enduring.... 

... Just a couple of days before the inaugural festivities, The New York Times published some superb investigative reporting by the team of Eric Lipton and Kevin Sack, and their revelations were hard to forget, even at a time of celebration. The story told us of a pharmaceutical giant called Amgen and three senators so close to it they might be entries on its balance sheet: 

Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and that powerful committee’s ranking Republican, Orrin Hatch. A trio of perpetrators who treat the United States Treasury as if it were a cash-and-carry annex of corporate America. 

The Times story described how Amgen got a huge hidden gift from unnamed members of Congress and their staffers. They slipped an eleventh hour loophole into the New Year’s Eve deal that kept the government from going over the fiscal cliff. When the sun rose in the morning, there it was, a richly embroidered loophole for Amgen that will cost taxpayers a cool half a billion dollars.

(snip) 

Amgen is the world’s largest biotechnology firm, a drug maker that sells a variety of medications. The little clause secretly sneaked into the fiscal cliff bill gives the company two more years of relief from Medicare cost controls for certain drugs used by patients who are on kidney dialysis, including a pill called Sensipar, manufactured by Amgen. 

The provision didn’t mention Amgen by name, but according to reporters Lipton and Sack, the news that it had been tucked into the fiscal cliff deal “was so welcome, that the company’s chief executive quickly relayed it to investment analysts.” Tipping them off, it would seem, to a jackpot in the making. 

Amgen has 74 lobbyists on its team in Washington and lobbied hard for that loophole, currying favor with friends at the White House and on Capitol Hill. The Times reporters traced its “deep financial and political ties” to Baucus, McConnell and Hatch, “who hold heavy sway over Medicare payment policy.” 

All three have received hefty campaign donations from the company whose bottom line mysteriously just got padded at taxpayer expense. Since 2007, Amgen employees and its political action committee have contributed nearly $68,000 to Senator Baucus, $73,000 to Senator McConnell’s campaigns, and $59,000 to Senator Hatch. 

And lo and behold, among those 74 Amgen lobbyists are the former chief of staff to Senator Baucus and the former chief of staff to Senator McConnell. You get the picture: Two guys nurtured at public expense, paid as public servants, disappear through the gold-plated revolving door of Congress and presto, return as money changers in the temple of crony capitalism. 

Inside to welcome them is a current top aide to Senator Hatch, one who helped weave this lucrative loophole. He used to work as a health policy analyst for — you guessed it — Amgen.

(snip)

Peter Welch, Vermont’s Democratic congressman, has just introduced bipartisan legislation to repeal the half billion-dollar giveaway to Amgen [see the video clip below]. Its co-sponsors include Republican Richard Hanna of New York and Democrats Jim Cooper of Tennessee and Bruce Braley of Iowa.

The Amgen deal “confirms the American public’s worst suspicions of how Congress operates,” Representative Welch told us this week. “As the nation’s economy teetered on the edge of a Congressional-created fiscal cliff, lobbyists for a private, for-profit company seized an opportunity to feed at the public trough. It’s no wonder cockroaches and root canals are more popular than Congress.”

Read More From Bill Moyers.com about this Foul Play by three US Senators McConnell, Baucus, and Hatch

Senator Baucus (D-MT) was a good friend of President Bush and was always counted to be there for a vote when it was needed for a Bush agenda item.  Now he is part of the 'good old boy' system that flourishes in the Senate.  Yet these Senators wonder why both sides are mad?  Although I think those of us who are center right are probably more livid at Republicans in Congress then those on the left as we have a lot more to be livid about as we swallowed their koolaid over the years.  
For example, yesterday 35 Republican Senators and one Democrat Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) voted against aid for Hurricane Sandy victims including Rubio from Florida who has seen large amount of hurricane relief given to his state, my two Oklahoma Senators who also saw tornado relief in huge numbers come into Oklahoma and other Republicans along the eastern shore whose states have received large amounts of aid. 

When the Senate passed the long-delayed $50.5 billion Hurricane Sandy relief package Monday, 36 Republicans voted against the bill. But of the 32 no-votes from Senators who are not brand-new members, at least 31 came from Republicans who had previously supported emergency aid efforts following disasters in their own states. 

While opponents complained that the bill contained too much unrelated “pork,” each of the 30 of them who had been present earlier this month when the Senate passed the much-smaller $9 billion Sandy relief bill also voted no. All five top members of the Senate Republican leadership voted no on both. 

Most incredible among the no voters were Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Pat Toomey (R-PA). Those two had not just backed disaster aid in the past — they actually sought disaster aid for their own states for relief from Hurricane Sandy. And Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) endorsed disaster relief for snow storms damages in Arkansas just four days before casting his “nay” vote.

Visit Think Progress to see a list of the aid requested by these 31 Republicans for their states for past disasters

Senator Vitter (R-LA) did vote for the aid which to me shows he appreciated what the Federal Government has done for New Orleans and the Gulf.  Senator Heller from NV was another 'yes' vote.  In fact Senator Heller has been voting for his state on almost all votes instead of following the party line which is refreshing.  Reminds me of the Maine Senators Collins and Snowe (now retired).  Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was right there with Collins to vote yes so we have a few with common sense.  Unfortunately there are 35 Republican Senators who voted "NO" to go along with their arrogance, hypocrisy and heads buried in the sand who will do anything to block something President Obama requests.  
Yet the GOP wonders why so many of us center right Republicans are not only mad but have one foot out the door.

3-27-10 Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell Delivers Weekly GOP Address On Health Care

Watch the facts about Obamacare that was just passed that will be hurting our economy but helping the IRS with 15,000 new agents. Wrong approach.

How many mistakes are there in this bill that have not been discovered to date -- Obama's solution -- more regulations.