Pissed Off Mad Dog Mattis Just Named Our New #1 Enemy And Is Now Going After Them HARD – It’s Not ISIS
Our new Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis has never been known to mince words. And that fact has once again been confirmed after the statement he made when asked who is the biggest threat to the security of America and it’s people.
He warned of emerging threats to the United States and its national security from Islamic terror groups, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and even went as far as to make a reference to climate change. But his harshest criticism was for the US Congress, for failing to pass budgets on time year after year and refusing to repeal the arbitrary budget caps that legislators passed into law during the 2011 budget deadlock as part of the Budget Control Act. More widely known as sequestration.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, it refers to a legal clause that goes into effect when our federal government doesn’t pass a budget in a timely manner. It caps the spending across the board and has translated into lower budgets than the Defense Department deems necessary to pay our troops, keep our military hardware running, research and develop, and to buy new military technology.
This is what sequestration does according to Yahoo New:
What is sequestration?
Let’s get the pedantry out of the way, shall we? It’s sequestration. Sequester is a verb. Everyone from Obama on down has used “sequester” as a noun, but lest you suffer the wrath of your nit-picking friends, call it sequestration. Learn it, love it, let’s move on.
Sequestration is $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts due to go into effect over the next 10 years, with roughly $85 billion slated for this year. Make no mistake, a lot of people in both parties want to cut spending. The reason so many people hate sequestration, though, is that agencies and departments don’t have any input on how it goes into effect—the spending cuts are implemented across the board.
Whose idea was it anyway?
It’s been widely reported that the idea for sequestration came from Jack Lew, who was Obama’s budget director at the time and went on to become his chief of staff and is now his Treasury secretary nominee. But to stop there misses the point, many argue.
Sequestration was put into effect as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Both parties had already agreed to about $1 trillion in cuts, but couldn’t agree on what to do next to get the nation’s fiscal house in order. They were also desperate to raise the national borrowing limit to prevent a default—an occurrence that would arguably inflict more damage than sequestration. To achieve both goals—raising the borrowing limit and improving the nation’s fiscal standing—they borrowed from a Reagan-era law.
The idea was simple: schedule automatic cuts for the future that were so bad to everybody that Congress would be compelled to implement better, smarter cuts before they hit. Sequestration was initially scheduled for the start of the year. Lawmakers delayed it then, but it now seems unlikely that anything will be done before it goes into effect on March 1 (though it could be addressed retroactively).
OK, So how will it affect me?
Sequestration could affect you if you fit any of the following profiles:
Ms. Defense Department Employee
Do you work for the Pentagon? If so, you may be one of 800,000 civilian employees who face possible unpaid leave after sequestration goes into effect. “There is no mistaking that the rigid nature of the cuts forced upon this department, and their scale, will result in a serious erosion of readiness across the force,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told employees in a memo last week.
Mr. Airline Passenger
Are you a fan of flying? Well, if nothing is done, airline passengers could start seeing meaningful delays by April 1 under sequestration. That’s because the Federal Aviation Administration, which is facing $600 million in cuts, may have to start furloughing thousands of employees, Transportation Secretary and former Republican lawmaker Ray Lahood said on Friday. The cuts could also lead to the closing of hundreds of air traffic control towers, making it harder for planes to land and take off.
Ms. Jane Q. Public and little Jonny Doe.