Late on the night of April 8, 2011, Washington's leaders announced that they'd just done something extraordinary. They had agreed to cut the federal budget -- and cut it big.
"The largest annual spending cut in our history," President Obama called it in a televised speech. To prevent a government shutdown, the parties had agreed to slash $37.8 billion: more than the budgets of the Labor and Commerce departments, combined.
At the Capitol, Republicans savored a win for austerity. There would be "deep, but responsible, reductions in virtually all areas of government," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) promised a few days later, before the deal passed.
Nearly two years later, however, these landmark budget cuts have fallen far short of their promises. In some areas, they did bring significant cutbacks in federal spending. Grants for clean water dried up. Cities got less money for affordable housing. to be fair the 2011 bill also reduced out year budget authority and that constrained domestic spending a bit in FY 2012 and more so in FY 2013- in fact the FY 2013 effect is responsible for the initial -0.1 GDP number for the quarter ending dec 31
But the bill also turned out to be an epic kind of Washington illusion. It was stuffed with gimmicks that made the cuts seem far bigger -- and the politicians far bolder -- than they actually were.
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/10/2013
10:34 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[184 views]
Top||
Yesterday, as a task force of 125 officers, some riding Snowcats in the rugged terrain, continued their search, it was revealed that Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil.
A senior police source said: "The thermal imaging cameras the drones use may be our only hope of finding him. On the ground, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."
Asked directly if drones have already been deployed, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz, who is jointly leading the task force, said: "We are using all the tools at our disposal."
The use of drones was later confirmed by Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Ralph DeSio, who revealed agents have been prepared for Dorner to make a dash for the Mexican border since his rampage began.
He said: "This agency has been at the forefront of domestic use of drones by law enforcement. That's all I can say at the moment."
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
