I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

QuinnCat

Mary - I'm just incredibly moved when I see facts so egregiously distorted, and afterall, until 1/3, I worked for the USDA, so in this one particular case I had to say something.  Amazing, though, that a GOP website would be characterized as "left leaning."  They don't even read their own propoganda?  I know, I know. 

lewing

Well, I had to jump in, too.  I do think that wherever one stands on federal budget priorities, it's important to understand how the sequester works, and how little flexibility federal agencies have in implementing it.  It was never meant to actually take effect, so it doesn't provide a whole lot of nuance.  Meat ax is more like it!

Linda

bluedahlia

bluedahlia

bluedahlia

bluedahlia

lewing

Loving the levity, Blue!

I'm also chuckling at the sudden surge of "White House tour" talking points.  I mean, come on.  Are folks forgetting tours were canceled for an extended period after September 11?  And then again after the invasion of Iraq? 

I'm personally more concerned about the seniors who won't be getting their meals-on-wheels, the kids who'll be shut out of Head Start, the NIH research grants that are going to be canceled . . . stuff like that.  Just so gazillionaires and oil companies can hang on to their tax loopholes.

Linda

bluedahlia

bluedahlia

bluedahlia

bluedahlia

Last one for today.  I know I'm a PITA!

RetiredLibby

Yep, Linda, Kam & Blue ... Lots of crybabies. Why do they want to go to the White House anyway, since they absolutely despise the family living there?



If they REALLY cared about what the Secret Service does and who they belong to, they could Google it and come up with www.secretservice.gov - the website for the agency. They are a part of the Department of Homeland Security, and they are charged with protecting the President, the Vice President, their families, and other dignitaries. They also conduct investigations, such as counterfeiting currency. Their main investigative mission (as apart from their protective mission) is to safeguard the payment and financial systems of the U.S. The Secret Service doesn't run the White House tours, but the uniformed branch of the Secret Service provides protection at the White House. Undoubtedly, there are more uniformed Secret Service needed to oversee the tours, as well as to do things like screen the visitors (including tourists), oversee the Visitor's Center, and other things behind the scenes (because they really do things behind the scenes instead of standing there like some people think they do).



There are lots of simplistic talking points that completely miss the nuances of the sequestration. I, for one, find it terribly ironic that those who hate the government most are those who are screaming like stuck pigs over things like White House tour cancellations ("that is OUR house!") while applauding cancelling Head Start programs or food assistance ("we need to get away from the culture of dependency"). Like needing to be educated or fed is dependence. Ugh. They make me sick.



Rant of the day as I look out my window at the airplanes flying in and out of National Airport guided by FEDERAL air traffic controllers.



L

alexandria58

Still remember standing in line at the Post Office behind a senior who was loudly claiming how Obama was going to do this to medical care as well.  Had to bite my lip to keep from asking if he was  returning his social security check and refusing Medicare.

YramAL

I always want to post over there, "Facts? Facts? We don't need no stinkin' facts!" But I restrain myself and post it over here instead.

Mary

pupmom

I haven't looked for a long time. Sometimes I'm curious, but then I think, nah, why get the blood pressure up.

Wabbit

I personally think people should be more concerned about the fact that those federal air traffic controllers Libby mentioned (and the people who maintain the computer equipment they rely on to be able to track those planes in the air) are being furloughed for a day every two weeks.  They were already understaffed by the way. 

White House tours, and other nice but not essential stuff, should be the first to go whenever the rules they are under with this mess make it possible.  Can't really imagine anybody thinking otherwise but YMMV.

RetiredLibby

Yep, WR. Nothing like making already stressed and tired people more stressed by cutting their salary by 10%. Stressed and tired people who handle the dance of thin metal tubes filled with kerosene and people in overcrowded skies. Just sayin' . . . .



Then there are the researchers at NIH. Medical research, anyone? Of course, grants will be cut too ... We are waiting for cures for lots of things ....



L

QuinnCat

Do these people think money grows on trees?  Do they not know that most of government has been cut to the bone since Clinton took office and there is not much left in the discretionary budget?  Always amazed me how people just say things like "government waste" without any idea of the workings within any given agency.  I think it is great that they finally find out what services the public will not get - those visible ones - for a change, when budgets get cut.  For years, my agency would cut vital programs to save face with the public.  We'd sell xmas tree permits on the weekends while continuing to ignore deferred maintenance.  

And who do they think manages the volunteers at the White House - the National Park Service permanent employees who are probably not getting their seasonal employees back this year, even while  getting some version of furlough, themselves. 

1Athena1

Alas, dumbos will be dumbos....

When you think presidential vacations can be squared off against White House tours.....how do you expect to be taken seriously?

Some people need to re-take first grade to get some basic comprehension skills in.

Me, I'm eddiccated enough to be thankful for them commie pinko/socialist/fascist Medicare toutin' air traffic controllers who save lives and help to make dream vacations come true.

Blue, we've got a serious electricity waste problem.

bluedahlia

Yep!

Belinda44

Belinda44

IllinoisLady

I'll add a litle something here:

Belinda44

RetiredLibby

And in a timely coincidence after I brought up research, this just popped up in the Atlantic's newsfeed:



PAUL ALIVISATOS, ERIC D. ISAACS, AND THOM MASON - Paul Alivisatos is director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Eric D. Isaacs is director of Argonne National Laboratory. Thom Mason is director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.



The Sequester Is Going to Devastate U.S. Science Research for Decades



1 MAR 12 2013, 3:10 PM ET 2



Cutting the meager amount the federal government spends on basic science would do little to meet short-term fiscal goals while incurring huge costs in the future.





Reuters/The Atlantic

Most of the talk about sequestration has focused on its immediate impacts -- layoffs, furloughs, and cancelled White House tours in the days and weeks ahead. But one severe impact of the automatic spending cuts will only be felt years -- or even decades -- in the future, when the nation begins to feel the loss of important new scientific ideas that now will not be explored, and of brilliant young scientists who now will take their talents overseas or perhaps even abandon research entirely.



Less than one percent of the federal budget goes to fund basic science research -- $30.2 billion out of the total of $3.8 trillion President Obama requested in fiscal year 2012. By slashing that fraction even further, the government will achieve short-term savings in millions this year, but the resulting gaps in the innovation pipeline could cost billions of dollars and hurt the national economy for decades to come.



As directors of the Department of Energy's National Laboratories, we have a responsibility both to taxpayers and to the thousands of talented and committed men and women who work in our labs. We are doing everything we can to make sure our scientists and engineers can keep working on our nation's most pressing scientific problems despite the cuts. It's not yet clear how much funding the National Labs will lose, but it will total tens of millions of dollars. Interrupting -- or worse, halting -- basic research in the physical, biological, and computational sciences would be devastating, both for science and for the many U.S. industries that rely on our national laboratory system to power their research and development efforts.



Instead, this drop in funding will force us to cancel all new programs and research initiatives, probably for at least two years. This sudden halt on new starts will freeze American science in place while the rest of the word races forward, and it will knock a generation of young scientists off their stride, ultimately costing billions in missed future opportunities.



New ideas, new insights, new discoveries -- these are the lifeblood of science and the foundation of America's historic culture of innovation and ingenuity. The science community recognizes the importance of those new ideas, so we have systems in place to make sure great new ideas get a chance to thrive. Every ongoing federally funded science program is reviewed regularly to make sure it's on track and likely to yield results. Each year, stalled programs are terminated to make room for more promising lines of research. Under sequestration, we will continue to review and cull unsuccessful research efforts, but we won't be able to bring in new ideas to take their place.



Every federal agency that supports basic scientific research is facing this impossible dilemma. The National Science Foundation -- which funds 20 percent of all federally supported basic research at American colleges and universities -- just announced it is cutting back on 1,000 new research grants it had planned to award this year. The Department of Energy's Office of Science, the nation's largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences, will have to shut the door on hundreds of new proposals as well. The impact will multiply as long-planned and overdue supercomputer upgrades and other necessary investments in our scientific infrastructure are stretched out, delayed, or put on hold indefinitely.



The National Laboratories aren't just crucial to America's scientific infrastructure. They are also powerful engines of economic development. Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Solow has calculated that over the past half century, more than half of the growth in our nation's GDP has been rooted in scientific discoveries -- the kinds of fundamental, mission-driven research that we do at the labs. This early-stage research has led to extraordinary real-world benefits, from nuclear power plants to compact fluorescent bulbs to blood cholesterol tests. Because the United States has historically valued scientific inspiration, our government has provided creative scientists and engineers with the support, facilities, and time they need to turn brilliant ideas into real-world solutions.



Basing funding decisions solely on short-term fiscal goals risks the heart of America's scientific enterprise and long-term economic growth -- diminishing our world leadership in science, technology and in the creation of cutting-edge jobs.



Sequestration won't have an immediate, visible impact on American research. Laboratories will continue to open their doors, and scientists and engineers will go to work. But as we choke off our ability to pursue promising new ideas, we begin a slow but inexorable slide to stagnation. We can't afford to lose a generation of new ideas and forfeit our national future.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/the-sequester-is-going-to-devastate-us-science-research-for-decades/273925/



But hey, who needs science. We don't want to pay taxes for overpaid gummint scientists, right? Science doesn't do anything for us anyway, right?



*sigh*



L

IllinoisLady

pupmom

Jackie, LIKE!

Belinda44

"Paul Ryan in Wonderland: Chapter Six"

"......The plan is a joke. It’s dead on arrival, and nobody should pay much attention  to it, except as another exhibit in the indictment of latter-day Republicanism.  Ryan’s numbers don’t add up. His proposals—cutting domestic programs, converting  Medicare to a voucher program, returning Medicaid to the states, reducing the  top rate of income tax to twenty-five per cent—were roundly rejected by the  voters just five months ago. And the philosophy his plan is based  upon—trickle-down economics combined with an unbridled hostility toward  government programs designed to correct market failures—is tattered and  shopworn....."

"......Before you start ranting and raving at the inequity of it all, remember what I said at the beginning: it ain’t going to happen; it’s a joke. But at a time when  the G.O.P. is supposed to be at least going through the motions of trying to  reinvent itself as a more user-friendly organization, it’s not a particularly funny one."

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/03/paul-ryan-in-wonderland.html

Belinda44

QuinnCat

from Dana Milbank:

“This budget ends cronyism; eliminates waste, fraud and abuse,” Ryan’s plan promises.

“Now, how do we do this?” Ryan (R-Wis.), the House Budget Committee chairman, asked with a magician’s flourish as he unveiled his budget Tuesday morning.

Here’s how: The former Republican vice presidential candidate’s budget eliminates ___ loopholes in the tax code, cutting the ___ and the ____ deductions. It reduces spending on the ____ program by _____ and the _____ program by _____. Retirees would see ____, students would experience ____ and the poor would be _____.

There are so many blanks in Ryan’s budget that it could be a Mad Libs exercise. But this is not a game. It’s black-box budgeting — an expression of lofty aims, with binders full of magic asterisks in lieu of specific cuts to government benefits.

If they object to the elimination of WH tours, well, they've seen nothing yet, if someone like Ryan got his way.  This country is living on the cheap and they need to ante up - more taxes.