White House wants public to feel the pain

Interesting development over the sequester deal. The sequester has gone through. The budget cuts it proposed are now current law.

The thing is, the sequester didn't cut any existing budgets. It cut the growth rate of those budgets. Like, suppose you make $1,000.00 a month and your boss had said you were getting a raise to $1,100.00 a month. Then he comes back and says, "I can't give you that whole raise, but I will give you $1,075.00 a month."

That's about what the sequester does -- and in the correct proportion. The sequester reduces the 2013 growth rate of goverment spending by 2.5%.  Oh my God! How can they squeak by??

Anyway, the point is, the government has as much and even more money than it had in 2012, it just doesn't have as much as it wanted. I'm not even sure why they have to cut. After all, the Comrade did just eke out a tax increase from Congress. Can't they leave their hot mess of government acitivities in place? Except the sequester does mandate certain cuts.

So what's interesting is that the Comrade had toured the nation, raving maniacally to anyone he could buttonhole, that the sequester would bring on a plague of locusts, fire would rain from the sky, and the oceans would dry up. And stuff like that.

And so far, absolutely nothing has changed, except the White House has canceled tours. Just heartrending. What will we do without tours of the White House -- which were conducted by volunteers, by the way, not by paid staff.

On the news, they were talking about a cabinet meeting the Comrade had about the sequester. Apparently someone in the Agriculture Department asked how much "latitude" he had in making cuts in his department. That is, how much flexibility does he have in reducing the funding for certain programs and/or eliminating others?

His answer from the White House said, "You need to make sure you are not contradicting what the president said the impact would be."

That is, "Make it hurt." Take their first-born. Pour kerosene in their gas tanks. Shut down the police and fire departments, the public schools. Think what you can do the hurt the citizens by denying them services -- especially critical services -- they've already paid for.

And coincidentally, Hugo Chavez, ruthless tyrant of Venezuela, died yesterday, but not before his people (that is, someone in his inner circle) claimed that the USA had "attacked" Chavez with cancer. Frankly, I should think his death from cancer was probably due more to the crappy health care he got in Cuba, but that's just me.

So perhaps if we cancel Comradecare in the USA, that would save a whole bunch of money and the excellent health care that we already have. Or we can the Comrade turn the USA into Cuba.

So, to conclude: with Chavez gone, perhaps the Comrade should start thinking about Venezuela as a place where he might rise to power and push people around. And a question: Will he miss Chavez as a role model?

Somebody's ripe for impeachment.