Obama: The Sequester Jester.  What kind of a leader proposes a plan to alleviate a crisis and then later, when the same crisis re-emerges, viciously attacks his original plan as irresponsible and reprehensible?  An Obama type of leader; that’s who.

I am a retired federal employee.  While I anxiously point out that many of the popular characterizations of federal employees as lazy, uncaring, overpaid bureaucrats are blatantly false and unfounded, there is absolutely no doubt in mind that our federal government is rife with waste, inefficiency, redundancy, and small minded elected officials and administrators who feel it is their role in life to periodically “reinvent the wheel” for the betterment of all.  The vast majority of federal workers are in fact paid about what they’re worth, have benefits better than much of the private sector and worse than most union employees, and are quite simply the part of the tire that meets the road.  They are good soldiers.  It cannot be stated often enough or loud enough…..FEDERAL EMPLOYEES ARE NOT THE PROBLEM.  Now, it is true that the number of federal employees is a big part of the problem.  And it is also true that many of the programs that the federal employees administer are a big part of the problem.  And it is exceedingly accurate to say that the manner in which federal employees administer federal programs is a huge part of the problem.  In this particular argument, the old saying about not shooting the messenger is quite applicable. 

Sequestering federal program allocations is a dumb way out of our financial mess.  It is irresponsible, it is not compassionate, it is not effective nor is it efficient.  It is, however, the best and only authentic solution that anyone has come up with in years to BEGIN the massive challenge of addressing our bloated government machine.  So let us understand completely that the world will not stop spinning on March 1 if sequestration comes into effect.  Yes; we will have thrown the baby out with the bath water.  But…the baby can be recovered.  The baby will be wiser for the experience.  Our government will have demonstrated that it is indeed capable of actual cuts in spending, as comparatively small as they might be.  It will show that our government is capable of taking the dose of medicine that is being presented to them, as distasteful as it might be; medicine that will begin to move our fiscal house in the right direction.  Somehow, someway, sometime…..we as a nation must begin to understand that all debts must be serviced and the collection man will cometh.  Perhaps that day will arrive on March 1.