Deep cuts into the pork.

I received several emails yesterday about my blog on the sequester. A few agreed with my point of view and several did not. So be it. That is the purpose of a political blog that is open to all to express an opinion. But I found one note interesting.

My view that this may be the only way in which to get the right and the left together was taken by Sam Nells as a blow to the leadership of President Obama.  Sam felt that I was attacking the President for not being able to bring the two sides together.  “You call into question his leadership, when in fact the Tea Party has stood in his way on everything he has tried.” Well, Sam, you’re right he can’t get things done. The right winger in this land hate him so, he couldn’t get them together over a card game with free chips. We have a stalemate. An impasse.

My feeling is that the Obama administration has misjudged the GOP.  The White House felt that the sequesters cuts in defense spending would send the Republicans scurrying to the negotiating table for a last minute “let’s save the pentagon pork barrel.”  It has not. And I for one am glad.

For far too long we have let the tail of defense spending of this country wag the dog.  It is huge and out of balance with the needs of the land. It has become the most misused favor wagon in the entire budgeting process.  Want to build a F22 jet fighter? Then make the nuts and bolts in my district and the wing supports in Tom’s district and build the tail section in Alice’s district…that sort of thing.  Jobs.  It was about putting people in representatives’ districts to work so the members of Congress could return home and stand for re-election with the facts, “Look how many jobs I brought home here.” Enough.

The sequester has done something that neither side can deny.  It has killed the pork. At least for now. It has sliced it up and moved it to the side. NO one gets to have their special little “bridges to nowhere.”  The fat is going away. And neither the right nor the left can stop it.

I don’t care if Obama misjudged the Congress or the Congress got too powerful and stood up to him— either way it means the same thing. We got cuts. We needed cuts.  We will all hate the cuts, BUT they are necessary.

The sequester is a bit like King Solomon’s “Chop the kid in half and each of you take a portion.”  The Republicans and Democrats are both going to see that the sequester hurts and hurts like hell.  But unfortunately, it maybe the only way we can get the job done with this abysmal scene in D.C.