Leaked email shows Obama administration’s plan to make sequester more painful

March 5, 2013

As Rahm Emanuel famously said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Even though he is no longer in the White House, Obama has not failed to keep applying that lesson. A leaked email shows that the Obama administration is trying to make the cuts to government spending implemented by the sequester as painful as possible.

In fact, in places where cuts aren’t necessarily going to happen due to the sequester, the Obama administration is instructing the government to cut anyways because they said it would have to happen.

Congressman Tim Griffin (R-AZ) blasted the move from the Obama administration saying, “This email confirms what many Americans have suspected: The Obama Administration is doing everything they can to make sure their worst predictions come true and to maximize the pain of the Sequester cuts for political gain. Instead of cutting waste, the Administration Obama is hurting workers. President Obama should stop protecting wasteful government spending.”

As Griffin noted in a press release:

According to an internal email, Charles Brown, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) eastern regional director, asked his superiors about how much flexibility he had in trimming his program’s budget in light of the sequester. The response from the Obama Administration was clear:

 

“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.” (emphasis added)

 

That response, according to Brown’s email, came from someone in the USDA’s Office of Budget and Program Analysis (OBPA), which is responsible for “coordinating the preparation of the Department’s budget estimates, legislative reports and regulations. OBPA provides direction and administration of the Department’s budgetary functions including development, presentation, and administration of the budget,” according to the agency’s website.

 

In Obama’s White House, you make it up as you go along. The fact of the matter is, the sequester cuts are not “devastating” and Obama himself said that the cuts are not the “apocalypse”.

The Obama administration needs to spare us of this BS and cut out the theatrics and feaux hysterics.

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