{"id":18329,"date":"2013-03-01T08:54:25","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T13:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=18329"},"modified":"2013-03-01T08:57:30","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T13:57:30","slug":"everything-you-didnt-want-to-know-about-sequestration-and-cojones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=18329","title":{"rendered":"Everything you didn’t want to know about Sequestration"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Let’s start with its definition.<\/p>\n

From the Oxford English Dictionary:<\/em><\/p>\n

+ \u00a0The action or an act of isolating or banishing someone; spec. (Ecclesiastical), removal from membership of the Church, excommunication. Now rare.<\/p>\n

From Merriam-Webster<\/em>:<\/p>\n

+\u00a0 The separation or removal of property from a person in possession of it in order that the property or the proceeds thereof may be dealt with as a court or other competent authority may direct.<\/p>\n

From Random House<\/em>:<\/p>\n

+ Removal or separation; banishment or exile.<\/p>\n

Finally, I get value out of all those dictionaries I paid good money for.<\/p>\n

Now for comments on sequestration and what it all really<\/strong> means. First, from Andy Borowitz, comedian and New Yorker<\/em> writer:<\/p>\n

Chinese Hackers Drop U.S. Government from List of High-Value Targets<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

SHANGHAI (The Borowitz Report)-In a rare announcement from a notoriously publicity-shy group, Chinese hackers revealed today that they were dropping the United States government from their official list of high-value targets.<\/p>\n

“We have to allocate our time and energy to hacking powerful organizations,” a spokesman for the hackers said. “Right now, calling the United States government an `organization’ would be a reach.”<\/p>\n

He added that the hackers’ ultimate goal had been to hurl the U.S. government into a state of abject paralysis, “and they seem to have already taken care of that on their own.”<\/p>\n

The spokesman acknowledged that despite years of compromising U.S. government computers, the hackers had obtained little of value, especially on the hard drives of congressional offices.<\/p>\n

“Those computers did not appear to be used for anything work-related,” the spokesman said. “Basically all we found were restaurant reservations and porn.”<\/p>\n

U.S. stock markets plummeted on the news of the hackers’ downgrade, which was widely denounced by American politicians as a hostile act designed to cripple the economy. “This is an insult to the American people,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia). “We demand that the Chinese resume hacking us at once.”<\/p>\n

But according to the hackers’ spokesman, any chance that they might put the U.S. government back on their list of targets was remote at best.<\/p>\n

“We need to focus on higher-functioning governments,” he said. “We’re taking a close look at Venezuela.”<\/p>\n

Now for Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone<\/em> writer:<\/p>\n

Sequestration Cuts Crisis Makes Me Want to Strangle Both Sides<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If you can get past how horrifying it is, the looming “sequestration cuts” crisis is fascinating. It’s like watching a bunch of gambling addicts play craps by throwing dice into a four-dimensional wormhole. There are so many variables that neither side can possibly know the true outcome of a failure to make a deal – which means the only certainty is that what we’re watching is irresponsibility on an epic scale, wherein both of our major political parties seem to prefer government by random outcome over one managed by sensible compromise.<\/p>\n

Obviously, most of the problem was originally driven by the intractability of a Republican Party energized politically by its Tea Party base, which preferred the nuclear option of a default or a government shutdown to increased debt and\/or new taxes. These fine folks taped sticks of dynamite to their chests and threatened to blow the government, its credit rating and our entire budget mechanism to the moon if we didn’t make massive spending cuts – a wild ploy that may not have made a ton of patriotic sense given the catastrophic possibilities of, say, a default, but certainly helped the party solidify its relationship with its base.<\/p>\n

Watching the original Republican debt-ceiling warriors furiously shake their fists over this business reminded me of that great line by Claude Rains in Casablanca, when his Captain Renault character tells Humphrey Bogart why he had to be so rough in tossing Rick’s nightclub in search of the missing letters of transit. “I told my men to be especially destructive,” Rains said. “You know how that impresses Germans.”<\/p>\n

This “let’s blow up the American credit rating” ploy impressed hardcore anti-spending types in the same way. It was crazy, but maybe only slightly more crazy than both of the parties have consistently been for most of the last 20 years, when the two sides have continually failed to hammer out workable budgets and instead have mostly just let the national airplane fly mindlessly forward using the laziness-enabling autopilot mechanism of a continuing resolutions, or CRs. Despite the fact that working out budgets is mostly what we hire members of Congress to do, they seem to have a terrible time doing it on time, and instead routinely rely upon the CR process (in which the two sides basically agree to put things off until later) to keep funding levels static for some ludicrously short-term period like six months.<\/p>\n

The failure to work out sensible budgets makes it impossible for government agencies to make long-term plans, and instead leaves them scrambling to spend money in the short term. It’s an incredibly stupid way of doing business and if these people weren’t on television so often, ranting and raving like baseball managers arguing a safe call at the plate and playing to the home crowd by pointing fingers at the other side, they would probably just do what members of Congress traditionally did in the pre-mass-media age, which is quietly and (mostly) sensibly work things out, getting as much as they could for their own constituents without crossing the line into antipatriotic acts of self-destruction – like a national default, for instance.<\/p>\n

But since those days of sensible bipartisanship are gone, what we’re left with is this. Both sides decided to play political chicken with our economic futures. Certainly the Republicans were more willing to pull the pin here, but the Democrats also gambled.<\/p>\n

In agreeing to this crazy deal a year and a half ago – a deal they were, admittedly, forced into – the Dems banked on the notion that the Republicans would never countenance deep cuts to the Pentagon and in that way leave themselves exposed politically to accusations of making the country less safe.<\/p>\n

But the Republicans – humorously if you can still find humor in this – have not yet blinked here, which is why the Obama administration is shamelessly rolling Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano out this week to make sure Americans everywhere know that terrorists will be crawling through their children’s bedroom windows as early as next week if the Republicans don’t back down on this budget thing. (“I don’t think we can maintain the same level of security . . . with sequester,” she said, adding that the impact will grow over time, like “a rolling ball.”)<\/p>\n

In a comically blunt use of reverse race-baiting politics, Napolitano added that she would have to furlough 5,000 border patrol agents if the sequester cuts took place, essentially threatening Republican voters with an influx of immigrants from Mexico if a deal isn’t reached.<\/p>\n

We hated it when George Bush threatened us with the specter of terrorist attacks to get what he wanted politically, so we ought to be hating this, too, although fortunately it hasn’t gotten quite to Bush levels yet – I’m assuming we’re still weeks away from Obama himself going out to the Rose Garden to tell reporters that unmanned terror drones will be spraying poison over New York City if the Republicans don’t give him his budget deal.<\/p>\n

The Republicans, meanwhile, are banking on the notion that $85 billion in annual cuts isn’t all that much (and considering that the Fed doled out more than that to Citigroup alone in just one month of 2009, their argument makes some sense) and the country will barely notice the damage if we have to go over this particular waterfall. The political capital they may lose with the Pentagon in (potentially) letting this happen is an interesting side issue, but one most Americans probably aren’t losing much sleep over.<\/p>\n

The whole situation reminds one of a family so dysfunctional that its members can’t communicate except through desperate acts. Mom keeps getting found passed out next to empty bottles of aspirin or mouthwash, Dad keeps getting pulled over for DUIs with hookers in the passenger seat, sis listens to death metal and is saving up for a bus ticket to meet some 40-year-old in Montana she met on the Internet – but you’d never know it on most days because nobody in this family talks.<\/p>\n

This is kind of the same thing we’re seeing in D.C. Both parties understood that the debt situation had to be addressed. But neither side could think of a way to work with the other party to get that done in a way that didn’t outrage its base. So what we ended up with is an insane gamble: The two sides created a system of automatic cuts that may or may not happen, and both parties are now banking on their ability to manipulate the media to blame the other side for any fallout that may occur if those cuts take place.<\/p>\n

In other words, instead of getting together and creating an actual budget that both sides would have to sign off on and own, they created a budget-cutting mechanism that each side will try to pass off as the creation of the other.<\/p>\n

Polls show that most Americans will overwhelmingly blame the Republicans if a deal is not reached, which probably makes sense, since the Republicans were the ones who first drew the line in the sand. But the Republicans are acting like they don’t care about these polls, which is also interesting.<\/p>\n

They may be gambling that cuts will take place and they will be proved right by the lack of a catastrophic consequence, which will lead to them later on being celebrated for showing such backbone. They may be gambling that they can convince Americans that it was actually the Democrats who refused to compromise and enter real dialogue.<\/p>\n

Whatever it is, the whole thing sucks. It’s like being permanently stuck in the NFL lockout story. Do we really have to do this every three months for the rest of eternity?<\/p>\n

And now to the New York Times<\/em><\/p>\n

Many Steps to Be Taken When `Sequester’ Is Law<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON – At some point on Friday (no one will say precisely when), President Obama will formally notify government agencies that an obscure process known as sequestration is in effect, triggering deep, across-the-board budget cuts that will force federal spending to shrink.<\/p>\n

At that moment, somewhere in the bowels of the Treasury Department, officials will take offline the computers that process payments for school construction and clean energy bonds to reprogram them for reduced rates. Payments will be delayed while they are made manually for the next six weeks.<\/p>\n

Hours later, employees at the Environmental Protection Agency will open e-mails notifying them of the bad news: a forced furlough of up to 13 days in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n

And over at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, officials will spend the weekend mailing out letters to governors in all 50 states showing how much their grants will be reduced in the coming days and weeks.<\/p>\n

Created by desperate politicians in Washington to force themselves to find a smarter way to cut government, the “sequester” will instead become the law of the land as a result of a failure of Mr. Obama and congressional Republicans to compromise.<\/p>\n

But the law does not create an immediate spending crisis or government shutdown like the ones that have loomed over so many of the previous budget fights in Washington. On Friday, the immediate impact on most Americans will be exactly nothing.<\/p>\n

Federally funded day care programs will continue to operate. National parks will stay open. Government employees will continue to report to work. Border patrol agents will do their best to prevent illegal crossings. Experts do not expect the stock market to flinch.<\/p>\n

It will be, Mr. Obama said Wednesday night, more of a “tumble downward” than a quick descent into budgetary nightmare. “It’s conceivable that in the first week, the first two weeks, the first three weeks, the first month, a lot of people may not notice the full impact of the sequester,” Mr. Obama told a group of business officials.<\/p>\n

That might not be entirely true, as Mr. Obama noted, for some pockets of American society: companies who do business directly with the Defense Department, families who live near military installations and parents who rely on federally funded child care will be affected. Federal workers may soon face effective cuts of 10 percent or more in their salaries this year.<\/p>\n

But even there, officials conceded this week, the specific impacts are more fuzzy than the aggregate ones. Ask officials about which contracts will be cut or which services will be trimmed back, and there are long pauses and blank looks.<\/p>\n

“The impacts of sequester are real,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said again and again to reporters on Thursday. “These are about real issues. These are about the concrete effects of policies on people’s lives.”<\/p>\n

But who? Which agencies? What contracts?<\/p>\n

Under the barrage of questions, Mr. Carney managed to come up with reduced funding for school children in Ohio.<\/p>\n

But which children? Those who live in Columbus or Cincinnati? Officials at the White House, the Office of Management and Budget and the Education Department cannot answer with that kind of specificity.<\/p>\n

White House officials become indignant with suggestions that Mr. Obama and his top lieutenants might have hyped the devastation wrought by the automatic cuts. At his briefing, Mr. Carney insisted that the administration had been transparent.<\/p>\n

“You know, we’ve been very clear,” he said. “What the president said last night is that – you know, and I think what other people have said – is that this will be a rolling impact, an effect that will build and build and build.”<\/p>\n

Strategists in the West Wing are betting that the growing impact of the budget cuts – including what they expect will be a hit to the nation’s already slow economic growth rate – will eventually bring Republicans to the table for a deal.<\/p>\n

It may take some time. Even the most direct impact on federal workers – the forced furloughs – will not happen in most cases for 30 or 60 days, after government managers have concluded negotiations with the unions that represent workers.<\/p>\n

A letter sent to employees at the Justice Department, for example, is filled with legalese. “This memorandum notifies you that the Department of Justice (DOJ) proposes to furlough you no earlier than 30 days from receipt of this notice,” it said.<\/p>\n

More letters like that are coming once Mr. Obama signs the letter making sequestration official.<\/p>\n

And when, exactly, will that happen?<\/p>\n

“It has to be done by 11:59 p.m. tomorrow,” Mr. Carney told reporters, joking that it would be at “11:59 and 59 seconds, because he’s ever hopeful.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only thing I, Harry Newton,\u00a0 knows for sure is that the salaries and benefits that our congressmen, congresswomen and senators won\u2019t be affected one iota by sequestration. They’ll still get better healthcare, too, than you and I.<\/p>\n

The final word on sequestration:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/span><\/strong>I humbly present you my candidate for Congress, for the Senate or maybe even for President. He has\u00a0 what our present politicians lack.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Republicans wanted spending cuts. The Democrats wanted higher taxes. Clearly no room for compromise. And no one has the cojones.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nHarry Newton, who remembers the old definition of Washington, “Eight square miles surrounded by reality<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

It’s not just us. Here’s today’s Economist<\/em>. You must<\/strong> read all the words. These two people are the winners in Italy’s recent elections:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And you thought I made all this stuff up.<\/p>\n

Maybe the market will go up today. Maybe it won’t. Newton’s advice: If it falls, buy something cheap. If it doesn’t, play tennis. hug the spouse and the kids. Invite the neighbors in and introduce them to our new candidate for Congress.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s start with its definition. From the Oxford English Dictionary: + \u00a0The action or an act of isolating or banishing someone; spec. (Ecclesiastical), removal from membership of the Church, excommunication. Now rare. From Merriam-Webster: +\u00a0 The separation or removal of property from a person in possession of it in order that the property or the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}