{"id":12832,"date":"2013-04-26T10:28:45","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T14:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=12832"},"modified":"2013-04-29T10:29:48","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T14:29:48","slug":"besieged-democrats-abandon-obama-sequester-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/besieged-democrats-abandon-obama-sequester-strategy","title":{"rendered":"Besieged Democrats abandon Obama sequester strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AP<\/p>\n

Senate Democrats blinked.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s political gambit got the public attention all right \u2013 and they took it out on Obama\u2019s Senate Democratic allies.<\/p>\n

With constituents screaming, and senators facing long flights home for this week\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

When faced with downsizing, businesses put customers first \u2013 but not the Obama White House. The sequester strategy was to target government\u2019s customers first, from students scheduled for White House tours to airline travelers to Section 8 public housing recipients.<\/p>\n

Loyal White House soldier Senator Harry Reid jumped the shark Wednesday in blaming cancer on the sequester. \u201cMost of the headlines are focused on the hours the sequester has cost travelers in airports across the nation,\u201d\u00a0barked<\/a>\u00a0the Senate Majority Leader. \u201cThe frustration and the economic effects of those delays should not be minimized. But the sequester could also cost this country \u2013 and humankind \u2013 a cure for AIDS or Parkinson\u2019s disease or cancer.\u201d We\u2019re not making this up.<\/p>\n

But Reid\u2019s army quickly melted away at the human \u2013 and airline economic cost \u2013 of Obama\u2019s FAA cuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d\u00a0reports The Hill<\/a>. \u201cBut Democrats abandoned that line as passengers filed thousands of complaints about delayed flights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Give me your taxes or I won\u2019t let your plane off the ground. Subtle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a manufactured problem by the administration,\u201d said Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland. \u201cThis was playing politics with air safety issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a>\u00a0aboard Air Force One, natch). Calling the FAA fix \u201cno more than a temporary Band-Aid that fails to address the overarching threat to our economy posed by the sequester\u2019s mindless, across-the-board cuts,\u201d White House automaton Jay Carney threatened to continue the White House\u2019s mindless, across-the-board cuts in other programs.<\/p>\n

But his senators are sending him a signal: The sequester chess strategy failed. It\u2019s never good to use voters as pawns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s political gambit got the public attention all right \u2013 and they took it out on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12832"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12833,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12832\/revisions\/12833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}