White House: Jumping the Shark & Four Pinocchios
The Houses was in session for 4 minutes today. No actions to Report. The Senate was not in session. Both are scheduled to return on Monday. The Senate is scheduled to consider two judicial nominees.
Yesterday, the Senate confirmed, 63-34, former White House National Security Adviser John Brennan to be CIA Director.
Roll Call: House Speaker Boehner said Thursday that the Senate will be toying with a government shutdown if it makes drastic changes to the House-passed continuing resolution. Boehner told reporters, "If Senate Democrats try to load up this bill with extraneous provisions, partisan riders and budget gimmicks, we will be prepared to move a clean continuing resolution through the remainder of the fiscal year. I don't want to do that. I don't think that's going to help our troops. So I would urge Democrat leaders of the Senate to not get greedy and get carried away and try to put forward the possibility of a government shutdown."
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest jobs numbers for February, 2013, reporting that after adding 236,000 jobs, the unemployment rate fell to 7.7% from 7.9%. This report is driven by the private sector and not the government. Of the new jobs, 246,000 were added by private companies while the government lost 10,000 positions. These numbers show Americans are tuning out Washington and are driving the private sector to stimulate the economy. While these job numbers mark a step in the right direction, it’s important to keep in mind that 7.7% is still unacceptably high.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) responded to today's BLS report:
“Without a plan to control spending and balance the budget, our national debt will keep piling up on the backs of our children and grandchildren; our most important safety net programs will grow weaker and weaker; and the prospects for long-term economic growth will dim. That’s why the House will begin work next week on a budget that offers a better path forward, one focused on more economic growth and more jobs. Our plan will balance the budget within 10 years. And it will lay the groundwork for a fairer, simpler tax code that closes loopholes and lowers rates to help create new jobs, increase wages, and grow our economy long-term. Every family has a stake in this debate. And we hope they’ll visit speaker.gov and share their thoughts as we work to address our debt and expand opportunities for all Americans.”
"It is stunning that in spite of running a consistent trillion dollar plus deficit, with the Federal Reserve propping up the housing sector to the tune of $40 billion a month, that we are still seeing a mass exodus from the workforce by Americans in Obama's economy. In fact, almost twice as many Americans just said no to the Obama economy than got jobs in February. This stark rejection of hope for a better future by so many, stands as a bright red warning sign about our economy's long-term future."
With in this mellennial age group, African-American unemployment is 22.8%; Hispanics 13.4%; women 11.5%. The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.7 million young adults that are not counted as "unemployed" by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.
In her column today, The Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel writes, “The phrase ‘jumping the shark’ describes that gimmicky moment when something once considered significant is exposed as ludicrous. This is the week the White House jumped the sequester. The precise moment came Tuesday, when the administration announced that it was canceling public tours of the White House, blaming budget cuts. The Sequesterer in Chief has insisted that cutting even $44 billion from this fiscal year will cause agonizing pain—airport security snarls, uninspected meat, uneducated children. Since none of those things has come to pass, the White House decided it needed an immediate and high-profile way of making its point. Ergo, it would deny the nation's school kids a chance to view a symbol of America. The act was designed to spark outrage against Republicans, yet the sheer pettiness of it instead provided a moment of clarity. Americans might not understand the technicalities of sequester, but this was something else entirely. Was the president actually claiming there was not a single other government item—not one—that could be cut instead of the White House tours? Really?”
And according to ABC News, cancelling tours will only save $18,000 per week, which is less than $1 million per year. So where is the White House looking for other savings? According to Bloomberg News, it apparently isn’t. In a story headlined, “Obama’s Tour Shutdown Lone Example of Cuts in White House Budget,” Bloomberg writes, “While President Barack Obama has spent weeks warning of the dark consequences of across-the-board budget cuts, there’s one area of government where his staff has failed to calculate their impact: the White House itself. Obama administration spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Thursday that ‘detailed decisions’ have yet to be made about how the administration would meet a projected $24 million reduction to the executive office budget, which may include furloughs of presidential aides and other employees.”
Meanwhile, reporters have spent the week demolishing one White House exaggerated claim of extreme hardship brought on by the sequester after another. On Wednesday, Politico noted six claims fact checkers have “shot down,” among them capitol janitors getting reduced overtime, prosecutors letting criminals go, Meals on Wheels serving 4 million fewer meals, teachers getting pink slips, and 70,000 kids getting kicked off Head Start.
Glenn Kessler, who writes The Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog, twice refuted the Obama administration’s claims about janitors at the Capitol. Last week, Kessler wrote, “Obama’s remarks at the news conference so alarmed Capitol Hill officials that an e-mail was sent by the Capitol building superintendent that comments that people who clean the building would get a cut in pay were ‘NOT true.’ . . . Obama’s remarks continue the administration’s pattern of overstating the potential impact of the sequester . . . . But this error is particularly bad -- and nerve-wracking to the janitors and security guards who were misled by the president’s comments. We originally thought this was maybe a Two Pinocchio rating, but in light of the AOC memo and the confirmation that security guards will not face a pay cut, nothing in Obama’s statement came close to being correct. Four Pinocchios.”
Kessler wrote another fact check on Wednesday, noting, “[T]he White House has kept up its spin offensive, claiming that a cut in ‘overtime’ was a de facto pay cut and thus the president was right — or at least not wrong.” Kessler found that “overtime amounts to only pittance of the overall pay — about $6.50 a week on top of wages of $1,000 a week.” He concluded, “Apparently, the president assumed — incorrectly — that the janitors on Capitol Hill would get a pay cut. Rather than admit an error, White House aides doubled down on their talking points about overtime being essential to their livelihood, without actually knowing the truth. . . . Four Pinocchios.”
And today Kessler is back again, discussing how “in raising the alarm about the sequester, the administration has highlighted the decline in vaccinations that it claims would result from sequestration” even though “[i]n the White House’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal, the administration had sought a $58 million cut in funding for the Section 317 Immunization Program . . . .” He concludes, “We remain disturbed at how vague and fuzzy estimates keep getting turned into hard facts by the administration. . . . [E]ven before the sequester, the administration had sought to reduce costs by ending shots for children who have insurance--on the grounds that the president’s own health-care law was creating new avenues to obtaining vaccinations. . . . The administration’s vaccination statistics earn Two Pinocchios.”
Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn said on Tuesday, “President Obama reminds me of the little boy who cried ‘wolf’ and his credibility has been strained by claims in his administration of pink slips for teachers that we find out weren't going to issue as a result of the sequester; cuts to the cleaning staffs’ pay here; and also furloughs at agencies that no longer exist.”
As Strassel concludes, “The whole point of the White House's effort to make the cuts hurt was to convince Americans that they couldn't live without big, sweeping government. Now Americans are asking how the White House justifies living with it.”
Tags: White House, lies, prevarications, four Pinocchios, sequester, BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment, jobs, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Posted by Bill Smith at 1:00 PM - Post Link
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