Despite sequester Obama designates 5 new national monuments

“There is a sucker born every minute.” That quote is attributed to showman P.T. Barnum. Another putative Barnum quote is “The show must go on.”

Both quotes seem apt in the light of the sequester, which the president blames falsely on Republicans. But even as he announces that everyone will need to make sacrifices to offset the $85 billion in budget cuts, he continues to spend like … well — like Barack Obama.

The Washington Times reports that on Monday, the belt-tightener-in-chief announced five new “essential” expenditures — on national monuments.

The new monuments will be: the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in New Mexico; the San Juan Islands National Monument in Washington State; the First State National Monument in Delaware and Pennsylvania; the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Ohio and a monument commemorating Harriet Tubman and her role in helping black slaves reach freedom through the the Underground Railway in Maryland.

Rick Smith, of the Coalition of National Park Retirees, said that the president acted because Congress had failed to enact legislation creating more parks and protected sites.

Speaking of parks, the Times notes that the budget for the National Park Service, which oversees the 59 national parks in the country that already exist, has been slashed under the sequester. Jon Jarvis, the NPS director, is on record as saying that the sequester could cost as many as 3,000 jobs within the agency and some $13.3 billion dollars of revenues generated by the parks.

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