It’s time to get back at it after that uh…ferocious snow day.
With sequestration going into full effect, budgetary decisions both large and small will receive extra scrutiny in the comings weeks. While formal negotiations of the budget between the House, Senate, and White House have yet to be formalized, the tea leaves are starting to show certain priorities. For example, yesterday the House passed a bill that will keep the Postal Service running on Saturdays. Looks like the House is primed to fund important projects and gasp, doesn’t want to cut everything (receiving girl scout cookies on a Saturday is quite legitimate)!
On the contrary, President Obama’s priorities have been called into question. Michael D. Shear of The New York Timesnoted that while the President has warned about the painful effects of sequestration, “it is inevitable that someone would ask the question about President Obama and golf.” His weekend jaunt with Tiger Woods the week before sequestration hit shows that President Obama is content with willy-nilly spending…just as long as he is the one who gets to do it.
Recently, former White House chief of staff under President Clinton, Erskine Bowles, called out the Obama Administration for only doing “the easy stuff” on deficit reduction. He stressed that the White House has failed to deal with tax reform, health care costs, and the solvency of social security. Check out the video below.
12:00 PM—Press Secretary Jay Carney Briefs the press.
1:55 PM— President Obama delivers remarks at the signing of the Violence Against Women Act.
Tweet Tweet
@rickklein“.@jonkarl reports while public White House tours are canceled, Obama is headed to dinner in a 20-car motorcade tonight. #ABCWorldNews”
@cnnbrk“Italy’s #Berlusconi gets 1-year sentence over published wiretap; can appeal. http://on.cnn.com/XUJNM1”
@ByronTau “Most transparent administration ever won’t say who Obama dined with. http://politi.co/12vpbP9”
@espn “5, 6, 13, 16, 23. Those aren’t lottery numbers. They’re your nightly reminder this College Basketball season is insane. #UpsetsEverywhere”
@blakehounshell “Randy pandas. well done, chaps. RT @AFP: Randy pandas given some privacy at Tokyo zoo: http://bit.ly/15zDGPD”
On The Radar
Economic Growth
On The Budget, It’s 1995 All Over Again from The Washington Post by Matt Miller. “Why? Because even as Democrats attack Ryan’s plans along familiar lines – critiques the press has heard for years now and will find boring – they will be forced to respond to what’s new here. Are Democrats in favor of balancing the budget or not? If not, why not? You mean never? And if so, by when?”
4 Factors That Could Turn Keystone’s Fatefrom Politico by Talia Buford. “Things look bleak for greens opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline — but they still have plenty of weapons to thwart or slow the project. Environmentalists suffered a blow last week when the State Department issued the latest in a series of studies that discounted their warnings that TransCanada’s Alberta-to-Texas pipeline would endanger the Earth’s climate.”
TSA Spends $50 Million On Uniforms Just Before Sequestration from The Heritage Foundation by T. Elliot Gaiser. “Despite claims by the Obama Administration that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) budget couldn’t afford sequestration cuts without reducing personnel—thus causing longer wait times at airports—the agency had no qualms about adding a $50 million contract for new uniforms the week before the spending cuts officially began.”
New Robots In The Workplace: Job Creators Or Job Terminators?from The Washington Post by Cecilia Kang. “Andy McAfee, a fellow at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, notes that companies are getting more productive without hiring more workers. Since the end of 2001, the nation’s gross domestic product has risen about 20 percent. Meanwhile, the number of hours worked has gone up by only 2.8 percent and the total number of U.S. jobs has increased just 1.9 percent. … But the International Federation of Robotics said in a study last month that paid employment has increased in countries that are the biggest users of industrial robots. For all the jobs lost in manufacturing, others have to be created in distribution and services, the report says.”
Immigration
GOP Senators Working on Immigration Not Discouraged by Jeb Bush’s Comments from Roll Call by Humberto Sanchez. “Four Senate Republicans working with four Democrats to draft an immigration overhaul bill said they were not put off by recent comments from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that appeared to oppose including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., one of the GOP senators working on the package, said he was “a little puzzled by” Bush’s comments and noted he was slated to speak with the former governor on the matter on Wednesday.”
Immigrants Buoy The Housing Market from TheWall Street Journal by Miriam Jordan. “Immigrant homebuyers have bolstered the housing market across the country in the past decade and will continue to fuel demand at least through 2020, according to a new study. Foreign-born buyers accounted for the bulk of growth in homeownership in states with large immigrant populations and helped offset a decline of purchases by U.S. natives in other areas, according to the report prepared by University of Southern California demographers for the Mortgage Bankers Association.”
Health Care
For Republican governors, Medicaid Expansion Is Hard Sell from Politico by Kyle Cheney and Jason Millman. “Republican governors who have embraced health care reform’s massive expansion of Medicaid are finding themselves wearing another unexpected hat: Obamacare salesman-in-chief. For some state legislatures, it’s a hard sell. Governors like Rick Scott of Florida and John Kasich of Ohio bucked their conservative base to accept billions in federal funds to provide basic health coverage to millions of uninsured constituents. But they need the support of their Republican-led legislatures to make it a reality.”
Cruz Amendment Would Defund Obamacarefrom Politico by Ginger Gibson. “Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) will offer an amendment to the continuing resolution – the bill to keep the government open after March 27 — that would defund the Affordable Care Act. ‘The very first priority of every elected official—Democrat and Republican—should be restoring economic growth, so we can ensure continued strength, prosperity, and opportunity for the next generations,” Cruz said in a statement. “Obamacare does precisely the opposite. It is already hurting small businesses, reducing the hours Americans are allowed to work, forcing employers to drop coverage, and leading to substantial increases in healthcare premiums—especially for young people.’”
X-Factor
UK’s Cameron Says No Turning Back On Deficit Cuts Plan from Reuters by Andrew Osborn. “British Prime Minister David Cameron will promise on Thursday to stick to his deficit reduction plan despite the lack of growth and loss of his country’s top-notch AAA credit rating, saying Britain would plunge ‘back into the abyss’ if he changed course.”
North Korea Warns U.S. Of Preemptive Nuclear Strike from Reuters by Jack Kim. “North Korea threatened the United States on Thursday with a preemptive nuclear strike, raising the level of rhetoric while the U.N. Security Council considers new sanctions against the reclusive country.”
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden Joins Rand Paul’s Filibuster from The Washington Post by Aaron Blake. “Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) filibuster is now officially bipartisan. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a libertarian-minded Democrat who has also expressed reservations about the Obama administration’s drone policy, shortly before 4 p.m. became the fifth senator and first Democrat to join Paul’s filibuster.”
