For the past month President Obama has been complaining about the damage the sequester’s “meat ax” cuts will do to the federal government and the innocent bystanders, like taxpayers. This involves considerable intellectual gymnastics, since the sequester was Obama’s idea in the first place and it was overwhelmingly supported in the Democrat-run Senate.
On Obama’s nationwide "Fear Factor" tour he warned of planes falling from the sky and rancid horse meat in fast food burgers. When the Chicken Little approach did not frighten the public — which is desperate for spending cuts — his administration set out to make cuts that punished the public.
Obama says he wants, in his words, targeted budget cuts using a “scalpel,” rather than the inflexible sequester chainsaw. Yesterday Republicans in the Senate gave him a scalpel and Democrats threw it back in their face.
It requires a breathtaking level of cynicism to complain about the harm budget cuts do to the public and then reject a bill that ameliorates that harm. But that’s exactly what happened. The Senate passed a bill designed to fund the government through the rest of this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, avoiding the threat of a government shutdown.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a true guardian of the taxpayer’s wallet, offered an amendment to restore funding for White House tours, saving spring break tourists from being shut out of the house their tax dollars support. With almost unanimous support by Democrats, Coburn’s amendment was defeated 54-45.
Earlier on the House side, Republicans passed bills that would allow Obama to make his targeted cuts while leaving the total amount of sequester budget reduction unchanged. Such initiatives arrive DOA in the Democrat Senate.
So on one hand you have Democrats complaining about the unfair impact of sequester cuts and on the other the same Democrats reject efforts to reduce the impact of sequester cuts on taxpayers. The reason for this politically schizophrenic behavior is simple: Democrats don’t want any cuts to federal spending, particularly if the cuts don’t harm the public.
Once you start making little cuts, the demand for larger cuts might grow and big-government Democrats do not want this under any circumstances.
However, the good news is the Senate did vote to redirect money so that slaughterhouse inspectors will remain on the job. You might say the Democrat masters of pork voted to reinstate the inspection of bacon.
