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We talked last week about the effects of sequestration cuts on the military, which have already led to cuts in the Army's Tuition Assistance program, benefiting veterans looking for financial aid to get a college degree. It's not the only military program related to education hurting under the sequester.
On the 10-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, and scholarships for children of troops who died fighting in that conflict are being cut by thousands of dollars, thanks to sequestration.
The awards, called the Iraq and Afghanistan War Grants, go to undergraduate students whose moms or dads died "as a result of military service performed in Iraq or Afghanistan after the events of 9/11," according to the Department of Education.
Awards that have already been established are safe, but as of March 1, the dollar amount for each new grant is being reduced by 37.8 percent from what a student would have received last year. That means young adults will receive up to $2,133.81 less if they apply for a grant for the first time this year.
Remember, all of this is entirely unnecessary. Congress could just turn the sequester off and allow the deficit to shrink on its own. The Iraq and Afghanistan War Grants may have to cut under the damaging policy, but the policy itself doesn't have to happen.
But congressional Republicans see these cuts as a "victory," so they're inclined to leave them alone.
What's more, let's not forget that it's not just military servicemen and women and their families feeling the pinch. It's the Head Start centers who are having to exclude kids, the furloughs for those who help keep Americans' food supply safe, the hardship on low-income Americans who rely on housing assistance, and on and on.
For all of the Beltway assumptions that sequestration was a dud, that President Obama "cried wolf" when he warned of damaging consequences, and that "no one noticed" the effects of the policy, real people are facing real hardship for no good reason. Much of Washington appears to have largely moved on, but for those feeling the pinch, that's not an option.
Greg Sargent hasn't forgotten.
Republicans have assumed an air of triumphalism in the sequester fight; today GOP party officials are gleefully pointing to the news that the White House has warned that an Easter Egg Roll could be canceled thanks to the sequester, which is presumably supposed to prove that the White House is playing politics with the cuts.
But the superficial skirmishing about egg hunts and White House tours belies the fact that the sequester cuts are very real and that this is a long game that's only just begun. Politico makes this clear in a must read piece on the impact the sequester cuts are having on two districts -- one Republican, the other Democratic -- and the political pressure those cuts are putting on two lawmakers to do something about them.
The Republican lawmaker, Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois, and the Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Bill Enyart, are already taking blame for the 4,500 civilian workers at a local air force base who are set to receive furlough notices. Both are also worried about federal funding drying up for a host of other institutions and social services in their districts.
Indeed, it's local media that's taking the lead in highlighting the real-world effects. A Democratic source passed along these sequestration headlines from this morning's dailies:
* Honolulu Civil Beat: Budget Actions in D.C. This Week Will Mean Tough Choices For Hawaii
* Standard Examiner: Despite stopgap budget, furloughs at Hill still possible
* Pensacola News Journal: Blue Angels arrive amid uncertainty
* Atlanta Journal Constitution: Sequester hits Uncle Sam unevenly
* Minneapolis Star Tribune: Sequester cuts already hitting Minnesota's reservation schools
* St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Furlough notices landing at Scott Air Force Base
* The News & Advance: Lynchburg airport tower closure decision postponed
* Hartford Courant: Federal Cuts Could Upset F-35 Production In Connecticut
* New Haven Register: Blumenthal makes pitch to save air traffic control towers
* Erie Times News: Control tower at Erie International Airport to survive federal budget cuts
Stories like these pop up every day, all because of a dumb policy that congressional Republicans used to hate, now love, and won't undo.
Postscript: The American Bridge super PAC has created a website called C-Quest.org, intended to provide "cut-by-cut coverage of sequestration." It's worth taking a look.
Leave a Comment:
please watch and air this video.
http://economy.money.cnn.com/2013/03/08/wealth-video/
i will be watching for it on every show.
You've been duped. Wealth is not distributed, and whatever wealth one person has, doesn't take away from anyone else. The economy isn't a zero sum game, new wealth is created all day, every day.
You should be banned, shooter.
I'm familiar with that video. It's rather stunning.
Even more so when people pray to the insanely wealthy in hopes that this could be them some day. Hmm... guess who's really been duped into forgoing values for avarice at their own expense?
Wealth is not distributed, and whatever wealth one person has, doesn't take away from anyone else....new wealth is created all day, every day.
.
I know. I have my very own money tree in the backyard.
largenose, You, too! LOL
I have to keep fertilizing mine all the time. I use shredded photos of Paul Ryan as fertilizer. LOL
I don't know why, but it keeps shrinking! Soon I will have a Bonsai!
Keep posting it, Harriet. I have been, also, here and on my Facebook page. I am going to seed it on my newsvine page, too.
nose, some people are good at making money, most aren't. Your comment tells me you're one of the latter. It's not a personal failing.
Guess what your comments are telling people about you? C'mon... take a guess.
Shooter
There are two words...just two little words that if followed through would sink all your rhetoric and Randian nonsense and makers takers BS and make you scream for mercy
General Strike
Ah...Shooter242:
General strike? Over what? Not enough free stuff?
There's that moocher meme again. Keep repeating Limbaugh and you'll believe it.
So sad for you.
June 11, 2012 at 6:54 am
I’d like to encourage more trollery on left wing sites. Specifically pushback on common memes such as identified by Jonah Goldberg as unchallenged cliches. It can actually work, and it can actually change the course of debate.
For instance, I always challenge “the rich take too much of the pie” meme. There is no pie, no one decides who gets what, and the “pie” is a measure of contributions to a total. Ergo the rich don’t take they contribute. It’s been gratifyingly effective.
Try it you’ll like it. Don’t curse and keep the personal insults to a bare minimum, don’t allow moving goal posts or distractions. Ignore trollish responders, and be four times more civil. They hate that.
(It is the same thing the trolls did to A the AOL message boards) What MSN should do is look at Shooter's ident number coming from his computer from when he post and shut him out from being able to post here on MSNBC.)
Purging dissent from the conversation sounds oppressive. If you're looking for ideological purity and total suppression of contrary opinion, I'm sure there are a few blogs left that cater to the the insecure.
My sweet, elderly mother-in-law has a Financial Adviser that we met with last week. He described the Sequester as "finally, some sensible behavior in Washington, reigning in runaway spending." Seriously, that's a direct quote.
Needless to say, while content with the current state of her fixed Annuities, this is not a person for whom we would seek advice.
He also boasts of having good Christian values... although we don't hold that against him, too.
The loudest, self promoting Christians are the ones that I watch out for the most.
harrietvandermeer, #1,
Thank you for posting this video. It is on my FB page and has been for weeks. I also posted it three times on this blog. It is the most shocking thing I've seen, and to me was an epiphany.
The GOP has caused this to happen over the past 30 years and the Draconian Ryan budget will further perpetuate this phenomenon we see in this video. We must fight these Republicans with all we have. What you are seeing in this video is a third world country being born.
Ours.
Meanwhile back at the sequester, since it's less than the money sent to Sandy Victims, you're not going to get a lot of sympathy. At some point you have to tell the spoiled child, "no".
That might make sense to other trolls, and I'm sure Limbaugh has been using the phrase "spoiled child" lately (like yesterday)... but I fail to see what this has to do about Benghazi.
What about Benghazi?!
I hope a tornado scours your house down to the foundation. @!$%#ing animal.
Now, now, Alan... calm down. Shooter is just doing what he's told to do.
Alan,
Sound doesn't travel down the rabbit hole. Trolls live there with their little tin gods, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Paul Ryan, and the T-Party.
And the mad hatter, John Boehner.
The hate is thick here. Tsk.
You reap what you sow, buddy. That's always true.
We have been at war for ten years and have a Republican party that refuses to raise tax revenue by closing loopholes on the rich, and now wants to LOWER taxes on the wealthy and the corporations.
After seeing this video, please explain to me, Mr. Ryan, and the rest of your party, why that would be. You want to further rob the poor, the elderly and the vets to give to the people at the RIGHT of this video?
Explanation, please!
We need a "WAR TAX," - call it a "PATRIOT TAX" if you want . . . but we need to raise the $$ to take care of our Vet's . . .
I am a Quaker pacifict, totally against wars . . . but when young Americans volunteer to risk "making the ultimate sacrifice" to serve their country, we MUST take care of them when they come home.
It's shameful that they are being told to wait MONTHS/YEARS to get the benefits they have EARNED!
Even a person totally committed to non-violence can support THAT.
REPEAL THE SEQUESTER. PASS A WAR TAX.
Regarding Republican support for the sequester, Richard Hofstadter explained how this works 50 years ago:
“Their political reactions express rather a profound and largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways -- a hatred which one would hesitate to impute to them if one did not have suggestive clinical evidence ... The pseudo-conservative, Adorno writes, shows 'conventionality and authoritarian submissiveness' in his conscious thinking and 'violence, anarchic impulses, and chaotic destructiveness in the unconscious sphere…… The pseudo conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition.'"
Very good post, TC.
My husband is at a conference this week, which is about two thirds of the size it would have been because the travel and conference allowance of government-related attendees has been cut completely. Tell the people who own and work at the (non-chain) hotel that sequester has no effect. Tell the local suppliers who provide the hotel with goods and services that the sequester has no effect. This is only one example of what we have noticed over the last two weeks.
I wonder how much trouble we would have had if Joe Biden or Hillary won the 2008 election and got re-elected in 2012. Those two are much more white than the current leader.
Seriously it can't be anything else.
We've had left-leaning presidents in the past and not one puny ounce of over-the-top resistance other than the typical party line babbling. But this time, boy howdy! Obama says we should go to the bathroom if we have a full bladder and the GOP is against it. Obama says we should breathe and the GOP is against it. Obama says we should wake up in the morning and the GOP is against it.
No. If it had been Hillary, they'd have been just as crazy and hateful. Dirty, feces-smeared idiots like Shooter would still be here spreading their bile. The only difference is that our useless whore media would have claimed that it was purely "Clinton hate" and that if the Dems would have just gone with that nice young Obama, the Repukes would be nice and polite and full bipartisanship. As disgusting as the GOP has become with its Obama-hate, I'm glad to see it, because it proves that the GOP will be vile and full of hate no matter who the Democrat is!
Hell, I'm even happy to see moronic posts by that sniveling weasel Shooter. As long as he's busy posting here, we at least know he's not out molesting the neighbor children or abusing his wife or something. He seems like the type.
Thank you for posting this. It is sad, we promised much and delivered little to our troops.
They should "come home" to somthing better than this.
A dysfunctional government made deliberately dysfunctional by Congress, is made more dysfunctional by sequester and that is the intent of Congress.
It depends in what Congress is paid to believe: if making the government vanish is the goal, then doing that was a belief shared by a noted 18th century economist Marx's and Engels. The state/ government disappearing was a naive prediction, made by these 18th century economist.
The truth of the matter was that government and the powered wealthy will try anything necessary to prevent the nonsensical government from vanishing.
The reality was that the industrial growth led to the more than a century of the worse excess of power in the history humanity for of all time, that such weird idea could blossom in propaganda was and is the more dangerous idea. It simple as pie to see the industrial might as supporting power to the point of madness, but by using paid media, entertainment, political gerrymandering, owning the print, running the broadcasting and manipulating constant advertisement. The public is as easily fooled today, whereas Casus belli was the easy choice for war.
Today we have the popular idea of the state/ government disappearing, supported by confessed conservatives wearing communist clothing.
Who would have imagined a conservative position that espouses the obvious impossibility of the state/ government disappearing as way to establish the new world order of the totalitarian state.
I don't understand how our President and this Congress have abandoned our Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans. 900,000 disabled soldiers coming home and can't even get the medical care they immediately need because of botched records processing...and this has been happening for years!!!! Many of these disabled soldiers have families, wives and children that depend on them at home. Having lived in San Diego, I am aware that many military families are left short with income and must depend on food stamps for assistance. Will they now loose their food stamps to sequester? COME ON! Stop this lunacy! Mr. President and Congress SAVE OUR VETERANS NOW or you will certainly earn a Special Place in HELL!
And their CHILDREN!!!
i was watching you when you were talking about cutting the collage grants for veterans children. If this helps there is a fund through the American Legion that helps ensure higher education is a possibility for qualified young people whose parents lost their lives since the terrorist attacks on Sept.11,2001.The major fund raising event of the year is the American Legion Legacy Run, a motorcycle trek that crosses numerous states between Indianapolis and National Convention city, they are called American Legion Riders. The monies collected have been huge over several years Hope this helps someone out, they could go to their local Legion Post to get more information Thank You.....
Here they wave the flags, love the parades, then go home and wipe the thoughts of those who actually sacrifice for them from their minds, not a twinge of guilt feeling that they haven't sacrificed anything while led by many of their representatives, those especially who've sought to privatize the peoples responsibility to those who serve them, and the press condemn the VA and it's dedicated employee's for backlogs and much much more, till the next call for showing their 'patriotism', DeJa-Vu all over again:
GOP Obsesses Over White House Tours
Iraq War: 190,000 lives, $2.2 trillionBrown University: 'Costs of War' Project - Among the group's main findings:
*The Iraq War will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers at least $2.2 trillion. Because the Iraq war appropriations were funded by borrowing, cumulative interest through 2053 could amount to more than $3.9 trillion.
* The $2.2 trillion figure includes care for veterans who were injured in the war in Iraq, which will cost the United States almost $500 billion through 2053. much more>>>
Iraq War 10-Year Anniversary: 19 March - Done 'In Our Names'!!
After abandoning the main missions, and world help, for why we even sent the military into that region!!
"We are dealing with veterans, not procedure; with their problems, not ours."; General Omar Bradley, First Administrator of the Veterans Administration
"If military action is worth our troops' blood, it should be worth our treasure, too; not just in the abstract, but in the form of a specific ante by every American." -Andrew Rosenthal 10 Feb. 2013
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." - Abraham Lincoln
No Revenues = Still No Sacrifice = That's Called 'Support' For The Troops = DeJa-Vu all over again!!
Neither war nor especially the results of, decades to come added to previous decades and wars of, have been paid for as the abandoned, and now forgotten, continues as those sent want in a drawdown to accomplish at least a very small portion of those main missions sent to accomplish!!
Only one Government Branch has been working consistently for the Military, their Families and All Veterans: Military and Vets On FLOTUS and SLOTUS, Administration and it's Cabinet, "Best - Ever": "We haven't had this kind of visibility from the White House ever." Joyce Raezer, military spouse - Dec. 30, 2011", and plenty more of similar since Joyce spoke and also will continue, as will the obstruction as the tepubs continue seeking to privatize the Veterans Administration, the peoples responsibility to those that serve them!
USN All Shore '67-'71 GMG3 Vietnam In Country '70-'71
Thank you for addressing this issue. We are very interested in helping veterans find their footing and make smooth transitions back into civilian life, which is why NHI Massage School believes in the taking care of our veterans by offering job training for those interested in new career opportunities. We also offer VA funding in support of veterans employment opportunities and veteran job training. Frankly, our vets deserve better.
-Jen