Subject: Use it or lose it!
Remember the sequester? Rep. Carolyn McCarthy told us that we actually need more food stamps! Rep. Steve Israel said that two years of unemployment benefits are not nearly enough. Barack Obama claimed that police, fire and teachers would all have to be let go. Joe Biden said that there was absolutely no way to reduce our $17 trillion deficit.
According to Rep. Tim Bishop, the sequester would end early childhood education. What happened? Its almost two months. Do you know where your sequester is?
It was in the 1990s and I was driving on Middle Neck Road in the Village of Great Neck. Dozens of my friends and neighbors were planting beautiful flowers along our major thoroughfare. They had started a grass-routes beautification project, raised the necessary funds themselves, and proceeded to build, plant and maintain this fabulous addition to Great Neck’s landscape. Bravo!
About this same time, Great Neck Plaza’s old, decaying sidewalks were being replaced with beautiful, red bricks. Even though these two projects appeared very similar, they were not. Great Neck residents had paid for those flowers. But, the red bricks were “free.” Well, maybe not really free. We were told that our town had received a federal grant to pay for them.
Doesn’t that make it free? In retrospect, spending our federal taxpayer dollars for this type of extravagant project is both ludicrous and absurd. Great Neck is one of our country’s wealthiest communities. We should pay for our own red bricks. But, our town’s answer was, “If we don’t use it, we will lose it”. And, in those days, losing it was not an option.
This example of selfish government spending just makes the sequester look that much more ridiculous. The “problem” with the sequester is that it was supposed to reduce our spending. But, in fact, it just reduces the yearly increase in Obama’s spending.
Next year, our federal budget will automatically rise about 5 percent. The sequester reduces this increase by 2.3 percent. Therefore, the budget still goes up 2.7 percent. Got it?
Now back to the sequester. Every agency decides for itself, exactly where these “world-ending” cuts must be made.
For example, they can reduce the number of air traffic controllers or they can find savings elsewhere. And don’t forget that the sequester was proposed by the Obama Administration and not by those radical Tea Party folks like me.
Please tell Sen. Gillibrand that planes are still taking off and landing at Kennedy airport, the emergency room at LIJ-North Shore Hospital is still open and treating the uninsured, the poor and the illegals (whoops, sorry, politically incorrect!) the “undocumented immigrants,” it didn’t decrease the number of first responders to the Boston “terrorist” attack. (Again, really sorry, can’t use that word either) how about “marathon violence”? Even Planned Parenthood is still “planning” and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is still filming the spotted owl.
But don’t worry, our “fabulous” congressmen anticipated the sequester and were fully prepared. Without missing a beat, without any remorse or guilt, at the end of 2012, Washington’s elected officials decided to use all their remaining “annual office allotment.” After all, “if they didn’t use it, they would lose it”.
What did they do with our money? Please sit down! They gave it away! Okay, They didn’t actually give it away. They just took all of their remaining allotment and gave their “deserving” staff-members a total of $500,000 dollars in bonuses. What “chutzpah” (please ask your other Jewish friends what that means. I don’t have the space)
Departing Rep. Gary Ackerman led the way, giving his “overworked” staff, $184,000 of our money. Rep.Tim Bishop gave away $73,000. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy was not as generous, rewarding her underpaid staff “only” an extra $57,000. Even Republicans, like Rep. Peter King did the same thing.
After all, that remaining money would have to go back to the Treasury (God forbid) or perhaps they could use it to pay for some red bricks for Beverly Hills.
How about a symbolic paying down of our debt? What a statement that would have been. Don’t use it! Just graciously lose it!
Dr. Stephen Morris DDS
North Hills
