“The Snake Is Eating Fluffy In Little Bites”: The Press Is Missing The Sequester’s Evil Genius
Love it or hate it, there’s a certain genius to the sequester. No, it’s not the notion of including cuts aimed at offending folks on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Nor is it its purported ability to force a budget deal. No, the genius is in the seven months it will take to unfold.
Why? Because $85 billion in budget cuts should cause outrage from coast to coast. But spread it out over seven months, and you might just get away with it.
Take a look at what’s happening in Indiana. The Associated Press reports that Head Start programs in Columbus and Franklin Counties have “resorted to a random drawing” to figure out which three dozen kids to drop from their early childhood education program because of sequester budget cuts. Those will be the first children to lose what is anticipated to be about 1,000 slots statewide.
It’s one of the opening skirmishes in a slow rolling war of attrition that will eventually play out across the country. The 600 families who’ve already learned they’re losing rental assistance in King County Washington. The 418 who’ve lost their jobs at an Army Depot in Pennsylvania. The Kentucky hospital that fired 28 workers.
None of these examples, on their own, are enough to garner national headlines. At least at this early stage, it can be hard to get your head around the impact of a policy that costs thirty jobs here, kicks another hundred people out of a program there, dribs and drabs of misfortune that can easily get lost in the shuffle.
Eventually, of course, the depth of the sequester cuts will add up to major setbacks for countless Americans across the country. But by then, Republicans hope the waters will be sufficiently muddied, the connection between pain and the sequester sufficiently attenuated in the public’s mind, the cuts themselves sufficiently entrenched that mounting an effort to roll them back will fall to nothing. Genius.
Now, as it happens, there’s an entity well-positioned to foil the Republican plan: It’s the media. And a media committed to methodically reporting not only the day-to-day impact of the sequester on ordinary lives, but also the big picture of what the little examples are adding up to would do us all a real service.
Instead we get this: An examination by ThinkProgress found that the suspension of White House tours “were mentioned 33 times as often (Fox News had 163 segments, CNN had 59, and MSNBC had 42)” on cable news “as mentions of other sequester impacts hitting the poor. Any discussion of sequestration’s steep cuts to housing assistance, food stamps, and Head Start early education was virtually nonexistent on all 3 networks in the same time frame.” And as you’ve no doubt seen, it’s not just cable. White House tours have been everywhere, from the Washington Post editorial pages to the nether reaches of talk radio.
So when Michigan Republican Rep. Candice Miller urges the President to “stop trying to justify the unjustifiable,” or Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran says, “We can and must be smarter with our spending decisions and make cuts in ways that do not intentionally and unnecessarily inflict hardship and aggravation upon the American people,” or when South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune asserts that White House tours are “not the kind of duplicative and wasteful spending that we should be looking to target,” the media plays right along. This despite the fact that by any rational analysis, the cut that unjustifiably inflicts hardship on the American people is the one that denies underprivileged children an entrée to critical early education services.
Seriously. What must you think of the government if, after taking a full view of the sequester, you hone in on the suspension of White House tours as the element deserving of such disproportionate attention? That the other programs really aren’t very significant at all. For Republicans, that’s really the point. We might have expected the media to take a more critical view of the matter. No such luck.
Look, I like a good White House tour as much as the next person. And if you have a child who was looking forward to one, that can be a hard thing. But I think I may have a solution: tell them why they can’t go, and be ready with an alternative thing to do. There are lots of other fun and educational activities in Washington, after all.
Here’s a harder question: what do we say to the Indiana Head Start mother who told the AP that “[my son] loves school…I don’t know how I’m going to tell him he’s not going back.”
I’ve come to think of the sequester in the following (admittedly gruesome) way: it’s something like a snake eating a hamster. If it gobbles up fluffy all in one bite, you can see that hump moving all the way down the line as the snake digests his delectable treat. Hard to miss. But if snake eats fluffy one little bite at a time, the hamster’s still dead, and nobody notices. Unless someone calls the snake out.
Hey media: your move.
By: Anson Kaye, U. S. News and World Report, March 21, 2013
“Against What Works”: Paul Ryan Takes A Side In The War On Poverty
Paul Ryan has a right to be wrong. He can believe that anti-poverty programs don’t work.
But he does not have a right to foster the fantasy that his opinion is grounded in reality.
Unfortunately, media reports on the Republican vice presidential candidate’s “big” speech on how to address poverty, focused on Ryan’s glib one-liners rather than the fact that his basic premises are false.
Ryan says that: “In this war on poverty, poverty is winning.”
That’s a nice play on words. But there’s a problem. Ryan wants us to believe that the “war on poverty” is what’s causing poverty.
Seriously.
The Republican candidate says:
With a few exceptions, government’s approach has been to spend lots of money on centralized, bureaucratic, top-down anti-poverty programs.
The mindset behind this approach is that a nation should measure compassion by the size of the federal government and how much it spends.
The problem is, starting in the 1960s, this top-down approach created and perpetuated a debilitating culture of dependency, wrecking families and communities.
So, in Ryan’s opinion, the “war on poverty” that President Lyndon Johnson declared in 1964 as part of a broader Great Society initiative made matters worse.
But that’s just wrong.
How do we know? Census data.
In 1959, 22.1 percent of Americans lived below the poverty line.
In 1969, 13.7 percent of Americans lived below the poverty line.
The poverty level has varied since 1969. It has gone as high as 15 percent. But it has never again gotten anywhere near where it was in 1959.
What changed during the 1960s to dramatically decrease poverty?
“Centralized, bureaucratic, top-down anti-poverty programs” like Medicare (1965), Medicaid (1965), the initiatives launched with the Food Stamp Act of 1964 and Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 programs such as the Jobs Corps (1964) and Head Start (1965).
Those programs worked.
Brilliantly.
They’re still working.
Brilliantly.
An honest political leader who really wanted to do something to finish the “war on poverty” would propose to expand them, with, for instance, an expansion of Medicare to cover all Americans, and a real Jobs Corps that would put Americans to work rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure of America.
But Paul Ryan does not believe that.
He says “the problem” started in the 1960s.
Indeed, if Ryan is known for anything it is for his determination to downsize, voucherize and privatize the programs that have worked, that are working, to fight poverty.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan would get at least 62 percent of its $5.3 trillion in non-defense budget cuts over ten years (relative to a continuation of current policies) from programs that serve people of limited means.”
Paul Ryan’s challenger is his other 2012 race—a bet-hedging run for an eighth term in the US House—is calling this one right:
“If poverty’s winning the war, it’s because of policies Paul Ryan supports,” says Wisconsin Democrat Rob Zerban. “By doubling down on his radical plot to gut Medicaid, privatize Social Security, and decimate food assistance programs, Paul Ryan is betting against working families—all to hand out new tax breaks for millionaires and Big Oil.”
Paul Ryan has taken a side in the war on poverty. He’s against what works.
Ryan has a right to take the positions that he does.
But no one should confuse those positions with a sincere commitment to fighting, let alone ending, poverty.
By: John Nichols, The Nation, October 26, 2012
“A Not So Distant Nightmare”: Women Will Get Pushed Off The Fiscal Cliff
Remember that time when Congress almost defaulted on our debt? It may seem like a distant nightmare, but we’re still living with repercussions from the debt ceiling showdown. In order to get Congress to lift the ceiling a year ago, President Obama struck a deal that will cut $2.4 trillion in spending over ten years and formed a Congressional committee that was supposed to recommend ways to cut another $1.5 trillion from the deficit. If the committee failed to come up with the cuts, sequestration would kick into gear, with $1 trillion in cuts evenly split between defense and non-defense spending come January 2. The latter never came to fruition, so we’re now on a collision course with the former.
These automatic cuts, known as sequestration, have (unsurprisingly) become a political hot potato. They’ve even trickled into the campaign trail. But if the cuts move forward, the pain won’t just be political. They’ll hurt everyday Americans—but not across the board. Women are going to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the burden. While the defense lobby has been loudly pushing back on the $500 million to be slashed from its budgets, the $500 million cuts from domestic programs could be devastating, especially for women.
Education will take a big hit, which impacts women in more ways than one. Immediately of concern will be the fact that 100,000 children could get bumped from Head Start’s rolls, out of a total of 962,000. That’s because the automatic cuts will take a $590 million chunk out of federal spending on the program. That comes on top of a huge decline in state financing for the program over the past decade or so—it fell 45 percent, or $122 million. While there have been concerns raised about whether Head Start’s effects actually stay with enrollees, working mothers need more childcare options when they head to their jobs, not fewer. Less than 60 percent of 3-to-5-year-olds are enrolled in an organized childcare or early education program, and just about half of low-income children are. Those numbers can only go down after these cuts take effect.
Speaking of childcare, working mothers who rely on options other than Head Start will also suffer. Assistance for 80,000 kids will dry up after the cuts take effect. The recession has already hammered this spending at the state level. While federal funds had flowed in to support these programs through the stimulus, by the end of 2010 the money had dried up. That meant that thirty-seven states pulled back on assistance in one form or another last year, making families worse off than a decade ago, according to analysis by the National Women’s Law Center.
Women will also, of course, share some of the pain from cuts to other programs like AIDS drug assistance and substance abuse treatment programs. And while these cuts sound bad now, they could actually get worse down the road. While there’s now a “firewall” between defense and non-defense spending to make sure both are equally cut, that disappears after two years. NWLC has warned that this could mean a bigger share of the cuts fall on the non-security programs at that point.
The spending cuts will trickle down in other ways. It’s not just mothers who will find their struggles increasing. Women are the majority of the public sector workforce—and they’ve lost more than their share of those jobs as federal and state spending has been slashed during the recovery. These cuts will only push that trend along. Cuts to Head Start alone will eliminate 30,000 teacher, aide and administrative positions.
Other public sector workers could be hit. If (and when) federal spending is cut from state and local budgets, many may have to eye even more government layoffs. Just after the debt ceiling deal was announced, mayors and governors were already bracing for the cuts to impact their budgets. Budget restrictions at the federal level also mean many agencies will likely have to turn to furloughs, hiring freezes and layoffs.
The sequestration cuts may have morphed into an election-year football, but they have real consequences for Americans who are already struggling to get by. And women, who have really suffered from the sluggish recovery, are going to be hit fastest and hardest. While figures in the millions and billions are hurled like insults from side of the aisle to the other, it’s worth keeping in mind how drastic the real-life consequences will be and who will feel them.
By: Bryce Covert, The Nation, July 30, 2012
What’s In The Compromise Spending Bill?
After a marathon four-day bill drafting session, the House Appropriations Committee early Tuesday morning unveiled compromise legislation to fund the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year and cut $38.5 billion from current spending levels.
House Republican leaders struck a deal with Senate Democrats and the White House late Friday after pushing to cut $61 billion from current spending levels. GOP leaders hope to put the bill on the floor Wednesday, with Senate action expected Thursday. The current stopgap funding measure expires Friday.
Overall, labor, health, and education programs received a $5.5 billion cut from last fiscal year’s level, including the cancellation of 55 programs for savings of more than $1 billion. The final legislation prevents 218,000 low-income children from being removed from Head Start and rejects education grant funding that would have cost approximately 10,000 jobs and reduced educational services to 1 million students, according to Senate Appropriations Committee summary.
Here’s where the spending cuts (and, in the case of Defense, the increases) come from:
- TRANSPORTATION AND HOUSING. These programs would receive the largest cut under the compromise, $12.3 billion from fiscal 2010 levels, including a total of $2.9 billion in cuts for high-speed rail, $991 million in cuts to transit programs, and a $3.2 billion rescission of highway funding, including $630 million worth of old earmarks. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s community development fund would get a $942 million cut.
- SCIENCE. The continuing resolution also blocks funding for the establishment of a Climate Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; for the approval of new fisheries catch-share programs in certain fisheries; and for NASA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy to engage in bilateral activities with China.
- AGRICULTURE. Agriculture programs would see $3 billion in cuts from fiscal 2010, including a $10 million cut to food and safety inspection, but the plan allows “for uninterrupted meat, poultry, and egg products inspection activities of the” Agriculture Department, the committee said. The USDA’s Special Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants, and Children, also known as WIC, received $6.75 billion, which is a $504 million cut from the fiscal 2010 level.
- ENERGY. Energy and water programs were reduced by a relatively modest $1.7 billion. The bill funds the Army Corps of Engineers at the president’s request level of $4.9 billion and supports existing applications for renewable energy loan guarantees at the Department of Energy.
- WASHINGTON, D.C. The compromise restores a long-standing provision against the use of federal and local funds for abortions in the District of Columbia, and includes the reauthorization of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships, along with a $2.3 million funding increase, to stop the termination of the program and allow new students to participate.
- HOMELAND SECURITY. A $784 million net reduction over last year, including a $786 million cut to Federal Emergency Management Agency first-responder grants and elimination of $264 million in funding that was previously targeted to earmarks.
- DEFENSE. Funded at $513 billion in the CR, about $5 billion above last year. The bill also includes an additional $157.8 billion for overseas contingency operations (emergency funding).
By: Humberto Sanchez, National Journal, April 12, 2011
Tea Party Budgeting: Everyone Doesn’t Deserve A Fair Shot
Three lessons I’ve learned from Tea Party budgeting:
1. Charles Lightroller was a chump.
Lightroller was the second mate on the Titanic. Legend holds that no one enforced the command to allow women and children to board the lifeboats first more rigorously than he did. Some call him a hero. But not me. That’s because I, like Rush Limbaugh, think Paul Ryan’s budget is “wonderful.”
And how could you not? Ryan surveys the budget battlefield and here’s what he sees: on one side, an onrushing horde of seniors, working people, and the disabled. On the other, defenseless corporations and their affluent compatriots prancing like happy kittens amongst the flowers. In the face of such forbidding odds some might duck, but Ryan strides onto the field of play and bravely interposes himself between the conflicting parties, prepared to defend the defenseless come what may.
Here’s what that looks like: Medicare, the health program relied on by millions of seniors, is replaced with a benefit guaranteed to fall further and further behind the actual cost of healthcare. Medicaid (healthcare for people with low-incomes) sustains deep cuts. But tax rates on corporations and the highest earners are lowered, while subsidies for oil companies remain untouched. Truly a profile in courage.
2. Pell Grants are destroying America.
I feel badly for not recognizing it, but it seems so obvious now. Freeloaders figured out how to get free food, free housing, and free electricity years ago, but they’ve never been able to reach the Holy Grail: free Biology of the East African Mud Turtle 101. Until now. “You can go to school,” warns Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana, “collect your Pell Grants, get food stamps, low-income energy assistance, Section 8 housing, and all of a sudden we find ourselves subsidizing people that don’t have to graduate from college.”
Welfare cheats scheming to take the college courses of their dreams? (And then not graduate!) It’s an outrage. How many of them are sitting in a college cafeteria right now snickering over a steaming plate of American Chop Suey? (Purchased with food stamps, natch.) “It’s turning out to be the welfare of the 21st century,” Rehberg says. Talk about getting schooled: that’s got to be one of the smartest theories I’ve ever heard.
Of course, it’s not just Pell Grants that are so nefarious. It’s Head Start too, and Medicare, and Medicaid, and …(hence, Lesson 1 above).
3. Better than Government? Fairies.
A signal question in American political life today is: when things go wrong, what role, if any, should government play in trying to make things right?
We seem to have settled on some answers. When we’re to blame for the bad things that happen, we’re on our own. The same is true when we do our best but lose fair and square. But what about when people encounter difficulties through no fault of their own and in a way that offends our sense of fairness? A kid who’s born into a family without the means to send him to a good school, or a mother who works hard every day but loses her employment because global economic forces are moving manufacturing jobs to other countries? Should government lend a hand in those kinds of cases?
The Ryans and the Rehbergs conceive of a government that does so less and less. They say the benefit of helping the disadvantaged is outweighed by its expense. What they don’t say is what happens to people who no longer can rely on needed government assistance. Perhaps magical fairies come along, wave their magic wands, and everyone who used to get a Pell Grant can still go to college, only this one is taught by chocolate bunnies! And all those people who can’t afford healthcare anymore? It’s OK. They’re now living in a cottage made entirely of gingerbread!
Let me be clear: there’s every reason to be serious about reducing the budget deficit. Political leaders on both sides of the aisle should be open to good faith ideas that emanate from anywhere on the political spectrum. But it’s reasonable to ask whether using concern over the deficit as an excuse to accomplish purely ideological goals can be considered serious.
Democrats agree that the private sector should be the engine that drives our economy and that we need the discipline to cut government programs that aren’t working. But there’s something else we believe that sets us apart from the Tea Partyers: there’s a promise inherent to the American free market system that says everyone deserves a fair shot, and that promise goes unfulfilled when people are disadvantaged by forces beyond their control and we all stand by and do nothing about it.
In other words, bring back Charles Lightroller. Boy, do we need him.
By: Anson Kaye, U.S. News and World Report, April 7, 2011
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