Besieged Democrats abandon Obama sequester strategy

Posted by hpayne on April 26, 2013

AP photo

Senate Democrats blinked.

With the public yawning over the Sequesterpocalypse that never happened, the White House took it up a notch this week with an air traffic controller furlough that snarled flights from LaGuardia to Detroit Metro to LAX. Obama’s political gambit got the public attention all right – and they took it out on Obama’s Senate Democratic allies.

With constituents screaming, and senators facing long flights home for this week’s recess to face the red faces, Democrats caved Thursday night in a hasty deal with Republicans (quickly joined by a gloating House Friday) to end the FAA cuts.

When faced with downsizing, businesses put customers first – but not the Obama White House. The sequester strategy was to target government’s customers first, from students scheduled for White House tours to airline travelers to Section 8 public housing recipients.

Loyal White House soldier Senator Harry Reid jumped the shark Wednesday in blaming cancer on the sequester. “Most of the headlines are focused on the hours the sequester has cost travelers in airports across the nation,” barked the Senate Majority Leader. “The frustration and the economic effects of those delays should not be minimized. But the sequester could also cost this country – and humankind – a cure for AIDS or Parkinson’s disease or cancer.” We’re not making this up.

But Reid’s army quickly melted away at the human – and airline economic cost – of Obama’s FAA cuts.

“The vote is a victory for House Republicans, who had been pushing for a restructuring of the $600 million sequester cut to the FAA to avoid air traffic controller layoffs. In contrast, Democrats were looking for a broader solution to the sequester that included new taxes,” reports The Hill. “But Democrats abandoned that line as passengers filed thousands of complaints about delayed flights.”

Give me your taxes or I won’t let your plane off the ground. Subtle.

“This was a manufactured problem by the administration,” said Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland. “This was playing politics with air safety issues.”

Yes it was. Memos from bipartisan, Bush and Clinton ex-administration counsels have noted that Congress and the sequester law give Obama brad authority on how to prioritize cuts. Obama just ignored it (except when flying aboard Air Force One, natch). Calling the FAA fix “no more than a temporary Band-Aid that fails to address the overarching threat to our economy posed by the sequester’s mindless, across-the-board cuts,” White House automaton Jay Carney threatened to continue the White House’s mindless, across-the-board cuts in other programs.

But his senators are sending him a signal: The sequester chess strategy failed. It’s never good to use voters as pawns.

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