“We have already cut defense … about 30 percent over the last 10 years, and we’re still at war. We’re actively involved on multiple continents in real combat operations. We should not be drastically reducing our troop levels.” That, as Bradford Richardson of The Hill reports, is the position taken…
In Wisconsin, as Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
America’s chattering classes seem at last to have awoken to the fact that the U.S. military ain’t what it used to be. Even the New York Times allows that “the Pentagon’s proposals to reduce the Army to pre-World War II levels” could “seem unsettling to a nation that prides itself on having the…
News broke this week that under a plan released by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the United States Army will be reduced to its smallest force since before World War II. Though not directly related to that plan, another announcement this week by the Defense Department gives, perhaps, a taste of…
If the public is to understand the full awfulness of the sequester, it seems that it must first suffer. So, as Eric Katz reports at Government Executive, the FBI will be furloughing agents and cutting costs in a way that, according to its departing director will:
A local Texas affiliate, KCBD, reports that 49 employees of Covenant Health Systems will be laid off due to Obamacare:
The effects of the sequester would be dire. Or so we were told. The massive furloughing of bureaucrats across all agencies and departments would result in cutbacks, or even elimination, of essential services. The bonds on civilization would be strained.
The grocery store chain Wegmans is cutting health care benefits for part-time workers because of Obamacare, WHAM reports:
As it turns out, Vice President Joe Biden's London stay in February was not the most expensive part of his trip. A government document released on February 14, 2013 shows that the contract for the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand came in at $585,000.50.
Forget the sequester. If you're Chuck Schumer, there are ways around it. Consider the recent example of a U.S. Marine Corps band cancelling its scheduled performance at a St. Patrick's Day parade due to the "sequester"--and Chuck Schumer's successful "push" for the band to come anyway.
Buildings in the same complex as Vice President Joe Biden's official residence in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Naval Observatory, will be closing doors to tour groups due to the mandatory budget cuts of sequestration.
In a sharply written statement, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama blasts President Obama for campaigning and not governing. He calls Obama's response to the sequestration "the most cynical behavior I have seen during my time in Washington."
In a letter to congressional leaders organized by the Foreign Policy Initiative, national security leaders says, "stop sequestration now." The letter is signed by former senators Norm Coleman and Joe Lieberman, former defense secretary Bob Gates, Bill Kristol, and many others.
The U.S. military announced today that instead of keeping mulitple aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, only one would be kept there. The reason offered? Uncertainty surrounding budget cuts.
A new poll conducted by Politico/GWU/Battleground finds that 76 percent of Americans favor "Cutting government spending across the board."
Deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter defended President Obama's $700 billion cuts to Medicare:
President Obama likes to say that a strong America abroad rests on a strong America at home. What he and his administration continue to ignore, however, is that a prosperous America at home has in no small way rested for decades on America’s global military preeminence.
New York Times: "Obama Urges Voters To Scold Republicans"
In response to a question about whether now would be a good time for the president to present his own debt ceiling budget plan, White House spokesman Jay Carney had this to say: "Leadership is not proposing a plan for the sake of having it voted up or down and likely voted down..."
President Obama repeatedly insists that the debt ceiling must be raised by at least $2.4 trillion. Why this particular amount, rather than, say, an even $1 trillion or $2 trillion? Because $2.4 trillion is Obama’s estimate for what it would take to get him through the next election without needing…
The Obama administration issued a press release this afternoon to declare that the president would not sign the "Cut, Cap, and Balance" legislation if it were pass in the House of Representatives:
There are many reasons to be skeptical that any likely budget deal would be worth supporting. And it’s long past time for Republicans to be planning strategically, and laying the groundwork legislatively and politically, for an outcome of no deal (or possibly a mini-deal that doesn’t sacrifice…
Much has been made of the Paul Ryan-authored House budget’s proposal to make Medicare more solvent through increased competition and choice — and rightly so. But that proposal is hardly the sole difference between the respective budgets authored by Ryan and President Obama.
General Ray Odierno is warning against Defense cuts, Defense News reports:
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will vote against increasing the debt limit unless President Obama agrees to spending cuts and long term reforms that satisfy the bond market, as well as foreign investors, and “astonish the American people.”
Fred Barnes writes in the Wall Street Journal:
Ever since President Obama gave his speech on deficit reduction last month, in response to the Paul Ryan-authored 2012 House Republican budget, press accounts have suggested that he has released an actual budget that would reduce deficit spending by $4 trillion. This claim is wrong on both counts:…
Charles Krauthammer puts the Ryan vs. Obama budget debate into perspective in his Washington Post column:
Lately, I’ve been staying up late at night because I’m just too stressed over the state of the union. Unable to sleep, I often find myself toggling between scores of Excel spreadsheets, crunching all sorts of numbers to get my mind around the gaping budget deficit that is threatening the country.…
Mackenzie Eaglen, of the Heritage Foundation, writes:
Barack Obama responded to Paul Ryan's budget proposal yesterday, and the GOP congressman and chairman of the House Budget Committee will give his rebuttal today. The event is hosted by the think tank e21, and Fred Barnes will be the moderator. Here are the details:
President Obama always lets you down. Just when you think he’s ready to deliver a lofty speech chocked with specifics on handling the spending and debt emergency, he offers up a hyper-partisan attack on the leading Republican proposal, gives practically no details of his own plan, and then…
Chris Wallace’s interview with David Plouffe on Fox News Sunday suggests an administration that’s afraid to argue for what it really wants, isn’t sure what to say it really wants, and isn’t saying anything very well. During the course of the interview, Plouffe incorporated many of the…