Feel The Pain

Obama Administration Aims To Make Sequester Cuts As Painful As Possible To Back Up Their Own Misleading Claims

• With each passing day comes another false claim from the Obama Administration on his sequester. In fact, his claims have been proven false so often, Democrats are worrying that The White House has “cried wolf.”

• This comes on the heels of a recently leaked email that shows government officials being instructed to make these cuts as unnecessarily painful as possible—only to back up the administration’s claims.

• While House Republicans have twice voted to replace President Obama’s sequester with responsible cuts to wasteful spending, it’s clear the president will do or say anything to make the cuts unnecessarily painful. He simply wants to prove, once and for all, that cutting spending is something to be feared.

Politico Reported That Democrats Worry The Obama Administration “Cried Wolf” On Sequester Cuts. “President Barack Obama hopes to spark a pitchfork revolt against Republicans over sequester-induced budget cuts — but many Democrats fret that he’s undermined that effort with an early strategy marred by hype, poor planning and muddled messaging.” (Glenn Thrush and Carrie Budoff Brown, “Now Dems Worry: Did President Obama Cry Wolf?” Politico, 3/6/13)

Four Pinocchios: President Obama’s Claim That His Sequester Would Result In A Pay Cut For White House Janitors. (Glenn Kessler, “Sequester Spin: Obama’s False Claim Of Capitol Janitors Receiving ‘A Pay Cut’,” The Washington Post, 3/1/13)

Four Pinocchios: Obama’s Claim That Reduced Overtime For White House Janitors Would Result In A De-Facto Pay Cut From His Sequester. (Glenn Kessler, “Capitol Janitors Making ‘Ends Meet’ With Overtime? Nope,” The Washington Post, 3/6/13)

Four Pinocchios: Arne Duncan’s Claim That Teachers Would Get “Pink Slips” Due To Obama’s Sequester. (Glenn Kessler, “4 Pinocchios For Arne Duncan’s False Claim Of ‘Pink Slips’ For Teachers,” The Washington Post, 2/27/13)

Reports Show That The Obama Administration Told Government Officials To Make Their Departments’ Cuts As Painful As Possible—To Back Up Their Public Claims. “In the internal email, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown said he asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to minimize the impact, and he said he was told not to do anything that would lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of. ‘We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that ‘APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be,’ Mr. Brown, in the internal email, said his superiors told him.” (Stephen Dinan, “Email Tells Feds To Make Sequester As Painful As Promised,” The Washington Times, 3/5/13)