Opinion

Let them live like the rest of us

TBO.com
Published: February 24, 2013

Congress and the president are playing a childish and extremely tiresome game of chicken, called Sequester.

The rest of us are so weary of the whole thing we've given up even caring who's right or wrong. All we want is for the endless whining and finger pointing to stop. We want our government to go back to working things out via negotiation and compromise, not endless standoffs.

The sequester idea originated in the White House when President Barack Obama and his then Chief of Staff Jack Loo (yes, the same one nominated to become secretary of the treasury) dreamed it up as a way to appear they were ordering budget cuts, while in reality continuing the national spending spree.

The House soon saw that sequester posed a real threat to our economy, so in 2012 they wrote and passed two bills aimed at retaining the savings but adjusting how and when cuts would be made so as to minimize the pain.

Obama responded by promising to veto both bills and anything else the GOP cared to purpose. Harry Reid then buried both bills under the pile of legislation that has accumulated in his Senate inbox since the GOP took over the House.

Now Obama, who doesn't seem to have noticed that the election campaign is over, spends all his time stumping around the country speechifying about how the Sequester, a budget cut of 2.4 percent (or 1 percent of GDP) will bring the entire nation to its knees. Huh? Does he really think anyone is buying that?

Meanwhile, John Boehner and the Republican House are pointing to the two bills they already passed as proof that they've done their part. And to emphasize that the ball is in the president's court, they are all but standing with their fingers in their ears droning, "La-la-la-la-la."

This ridiculous stare-down is bound to force Obama, who has the final say on what gets cut, to slash things he really doesn't have to, just to prove his dire predictions true. Things like air-traffic controllers, military readiness and vital services may be axed, allowing Obama to thumb his nose at the Republicans and fulfill his ultimate goal of ousting them in the 2014 mid-term elections. In other words, everybody loses.

How in the world did our national government ever turn into such a kindergarten sandbox? It simply has to stop. So here's my list of what should be cut so that "We the People" are spared:

Are you sensing a pattern here? Good, because I'm just getting started. It is time the people who make our laws had to live by them … like the rest of us.