About two years ago at this time, Republicans were issuing threats - empty threats unfortunately - to shut down the government over the budget impasse. I have republished the article I wrote for Breitbart at that time below. The current sequester situation is identical in both the fraudulent rhetoric the Democrats, especially Obama, are tossing out, and the way it will actually play out. When reading below, just change "shutdown" to "sequester" in your mind.
The mainstream media is complicit in the Democrats' demagoguery on this issue, reprinting without question, White House dire assertions about the sequester's impact.
The key thing to understand is that, while the sequester requires across the board cuts from each federal agency, they are tiny (about 2%) relative to the actual budget. More importantly, however, agencies have discretion as to how they make those cuts. If layoffs do occur, air traffic controllers are furloughed, or Social Security checks are not mailed, as Obama is warning, it will be directly because Obama made a political decision to see that happen.
One must be clear-headed. This entire exercise is an effort by Obama and the Democrats to smear the Republicans, either by laying disaster at their feet, or manipulating them into accepting more tax increases. The true intention is to increase the Dems' chances for retaking the House in 2014.
Read on. Remember, this happened two years ago. Original Article:
Looming Government Shutdown Anarchy
If Congress and the President cannot agree on a 2011 budget by March 4th the federal government will shutdown. While the Continuing Resolution passed in the House of Representatives was extremely disappointing, it still included budget cuts Democrats oppose and two amendments by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to defund Obamacare. Rather than appearing to cave to Republicans, Democrats will likely opt for a shutdown and hope it hurts Republicans like it did in 1995. What every person conceivably affected needs to understand is how this will impact average Americans.
A Google search of “government shutdown” brings up pages describing dire consequences. If you follow the links however, you will see that this is mostly hubris. The greatest consequence of a government shutdown will be the media hysteria we will have to put up with until the issue is settled. Democrats will demagogue at every opportunity, describing fantastic scenes of nationwide anarchy. They will do what they always do, about the only thing they do well, and in fact have already begun doing:
They will lie.
President Obama almost immediately threatened that Social Security checks would stop coming.
He lied.
Think Progress, the archetypical radical left propaganda rag, interviewed freshman Republican Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), who pooh poohed worries about a government shutdown. They didn’t ask him to qualify, but later, when he couldn’t respond, attempted to discredit his message.
They lied.
The whole article is a carefully constructed deception—an echo chamber for Democrat demagoguery. Follow the links in the story. They’re hoping you won’t.
The first link goes to a Wikipedia entry that describes the 1995 shutdown. No mention of social security checks. The second goes to an article at Talking Points Memo which simply quotes more Democrats, like Clinton HHS Secretary Donna Shalala. She said, “It was a mess, frankly, and devastating to the civil service… It seems to me it’s un-American…”
Devastating to the civil service? They got a three week paid vacation!
Un-American? Well, she should know.
Shalala made dire predictions that: “Social Security checks, Medicare reimbursements...welfare checks to the state, Medicaid checks to the state…” would stop going out.
She lied.
The Think Progress article cites some statistics from a 2004 Congressional Research Service report on government shutdowns. By citing CRS, Think Progress attempts to impute integrity to their propaganda. Once again, they are hoping you don’t look up the report, which they did not link to.
The report is explicit regarding which “essential services” continue to operate during a shutdown:
- providing for the national security, including the conduct of foreign relations essential to the national security or the safety of life and property;
- providing for benefit payments (.e.g. Social Security, welfare, etc.) and the performance of contract obligations under no-year or multi-year or other funds remaining available for those purposes;
- conducting essential activities to the extent that they protect life and property, including:
- medical care of inpatients and emergency outpatient care;
- activities essential to ensure continued public health and safety, including safe use of food, drugs, and hazardous materials;
- continuance of air traffic control and other transportation safety functions and the protection of transport property;
- border and coastal protection and surveillance;
- protection of federal lands, buildings, waterways, equipment and other property owned by the United States;
- care of prisoners and other persons in the custody of the United States;
- law enforcement and criminal investigations;
- emergency and disaster assistance;
- activities that ensure production of power and maintenance of the power distribution system;
- activities essential to the preservation of the essential elements of the money and banking system of the United States, including borrowing and tax collection activities of the Treasury; and
- activities necessary to maintain protection of research property.
It is absolutely clear. There will be no disruption in Social Security, welfare, civil service retirement, or any other kind of open-ended mandatory program payments. Other dire prophesies will go largely unfulfilled as well.
Notice that the CRS Report link comes from the Democrats’ House Rules Committee website. So the Democrats know all this, but they blatantly lie about it.
The Republicans’ job from here on in is to point out the facts. The shutdown will not have the dire consequences Democrats claim. Republicans must also communicate that a government shutdown would be due entirely to Democrat intransigence. Republicans won a clear mandate in November 2010 to end profligate government spending. Memo to Dems: knock it off!
Speaker Boehner and House Republicans, you have the voters on your side, you have the facts on your side, and never in our history has it been more important for you to take a principled stand. Do not back down in the face of the Democrats’ government shutdown threats. We don’t want that, but if Democrats insist on continuing to trash our country, I say, “Bring it on!"
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