SNAP! Agricultural Subsidies For Wealthy Republicans-- Starvation For Poor Families-- Sinks GOP Farm Bill

During the Vietnam War I never thought I'd actually return to the U.S. I was so ashamed of what my country was doing to the people of Southeast Asia. But one morning I woke up in Amsterdam and realized I had been dreaming in Dutch. I decided to go home and I was back in America within 2 weeks. I had been away for nearly seven years and I had a real period of readjustment, especially when I washed up in San Francisco, a city I had never lived in. I was lucky to have some Sufi connections from the meditation center I had worked in in Amsterdam and I was lucky to have met Harvey Milk who staked me for the equipment I needed to set up a dark room and get work as a photographer. But, economically-speaking, I had a couple of pretty bleak years before getting back on my feet. I could have never gotten through it without... you... us... the U.S.A. That's right, the America I had fled because of my abhorrence of the bombing in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos stepped up to the plate for me. The government gave me food stamps.

It wasn't much of an investment but it helped keep me alive through the tough times while I invested in building an independent record company. It paid off for Uncle Sam too. Eventually that record company that would never have been built without the food stamps I existed on, was successful. I sold it to SONY. The U.S. taxpayers got their food stamp investment back in one transaction. And then I went on to a successful career in the corporate world. Some years I paid over a million dollars in taxes. No one likes paying that much in taxes but I always reminded myself that without the help I got from the government, I would never have been in the position to make enough money so that I would be paying that much in taxes.

That's why I was so furious when a bunch of political hacks, some of whom have never done much of anything aside from feed at the public trough, voted against food stamp help for desperately poor people. In various committees looking at the SNAP program it wasn't only Republicans voting to slash the program to ribbons, but also some easily corrupted and misled Democrats, primarily New Dems and Blue Dogs.

Tuesday when the Republicans wanted to bring up their latest anti-Choice/War On Women legislation, the resolution read like this: "Providing for consideration of H.R. 1947, to provide for the reform and continuation of agricultural and other programs of the Department of Agriculture through FY 2018; and providing for consideration of H.R. 1797, to amend title 18, U.S. Code, to protect pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia." I don't recall ever seeing such a bizarre and unrelated pairing. But even at that-- and it passed 232-193-- 5 extremely right-wing Democrats were happy to go along with the bizarre duo of bills: Dan Lipinksi (IL), Mike McIntyre (New Dem/Blue Dog-NC), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Tim Walz (MN) and Nick Rahall (WV).

When the House voted on a stand alone resolution to proceed with the debate on Wednesday, 173 Democrats (and 4 Republicans) voted NO. Only 15 Democrats voted with the Republicans, a hint about which ones are willing, if not eager, to steal from the poor to give to the rich. Among them are the 4 sleazy New Dem freshmen most likely to lose in 2014: Sean Patrick Maloney (NY), Scott Peters (CA), Ron Barber (AZ), and Dan Maffei (NY).

Yesterday, ThinkProgress took a look at some of the biggest congressional recipients of farm welfare for their own businesses-- and how anti-food stamps they are. These are the 4 worst congressional greed dogs (at least on this matter-- along with their excuses for voting to cut nutrition for poor families:

Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who’s gotten over $500,000 in subsidy payments since 1995, is a particularly interesting case. While Noem is diplomatic in most public statements on food stamps, she endorses a common smear of the program when away from cameras. In a constituent letter obtained by ThinkProgress, Noem wrote that “loopholes and fraud in the current program have lead to federal spending on SNAP to increase [sic] by 270 percent over the past ten years.” Rep. Vicki Hartzler (R-MO) offers to same rationale for the cuts, and has taken $500,000 in farm subsidies as well.

In fact, the jump in food stamp enrollment is due almost entirely to the catastrophic economic collapse and ensuing Great Recession. Even amid that heightened strain on the program’s staff, “SNAP achieved its lowest error rates on record in fiscal year 2011,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Outright fraud is down to just one percent.

Waste, fraud, and abuse are more common in the farm subsidies programs that have sent over a million taxpayer dollars to the Hartzler and Noem households over the years than in food stamps. Crop insurance alone has a 4.7 percent error rate, compared to 3.8 percent for SNAP.

The House started voting on the 103 amendments to the bill yesterday. Corrupt shills for AgriBusiness-- like top Ag Committee Republican Frank Lucas (R-OK) and top Democrat on the committee, and ex-Chair, Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)-- are pushing it. Progressives hate it and so does the far right (take a look at the threatening tweet below from neo-fascist Club for Growth fuehrer Chris Chocola), albeit for different reasons. Pelosi is likely to vote against it and Boehner has said he's not crazy about the bill but he'll vote for it. Peterson thinks he can bring a few dozen of the worst right-wing and most corrupt Democrats along in the end. We'll keep you informed.

UPDATE: United Front Of Progressives And Far Right Teabaggers Gives Boehner A Stunning Blow

When the House voted on amendments to the Farm bill this week, the first one that came up was Jim McGovern's amendment to stop the defunding of SNAP. It lost 188-234, 5 Republicans voting with the Democrats but 8 ConservaDems crossing the aisle in the other direction to back the GOP jihad against poor people:

• John Barrow (New Dem/Blue Dog-GA)
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
• Cheri Bustos (IL)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Mike McIntyre (New Dem/Blue Dog-NC)
• Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Tim Walz (MN)

Meanwhile, the degrading Richard Hudson (R-NC) amendment to make food stamps applicants undergo drug testing somehow made it into the bill, further alienating Democrats who were thinking about voting for it.

The overall bill failed 195-234, 62 mostly far right Republicans sabotaging their own leadership by voting with 172 Democrats. Only two-dozen of the most corrupt Democrats, mostly New Dems like Patrick Murphy (FL) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Blue Dogs like John Barrow (GA) and Mike McIntyre (NC), stood with Boehner and Cantor to try to pass this monstrosity. Kind of funny seeing drooling sociopaths like Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Paul Broun (R-GA), Trey Radel (R-FL), Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Steve Stockman (R-TX) and, even Paul Ryan (R-WI) leaving Boehner and Cantor hanging while they handed the stunning triumph to Nancy Pelosi. (Boehner and Cantor are blaming Pelosi for their embarrassing defeat and ignoring the 62 Republicans who betrayed him-- or looking at the way their own whip operation collapsed... although Boehner, slightly drunk, had a screaming match with McCarthy, his whip, as the votes were being counted). Cantor went whining to the press:

"I'm extremely disappointed that Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership have at the last minute chosen to derail years of bipartisan work on the Farm Bill and related reforms. This bill was far from perfect, but the only way to achieve meaningful reform, such as Congressman Southerland's amendment reforming the food stamp program, was in conference.

"I strongly supported the Southerland amendment which built on successful welfare reforms that have worked in the past to give states more flexibility and encourage self-sufficiency by increasing workforce participation among those enrolled in the SNAP program. I commend Chairman Frank Lucas and the House Agriculture Committee for their efforts, and am sorry that Democrats shamefully chose politics over progress and meaningful reform."

Chris Van Hollen's retort was, basically, if Pelosi were Speaker this "never would have happened." Pelosi was even more pointed: "The Republicans have the majority of Congress and it's their responsibility to send a bill. What [was] happening on the floor today was a demonstration of major amateur hour. They didn't get results and they put the blame on somebody else."

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Will Boehner Be The Scapegoat For Republican Nihilism?

Thomas Kean, Sr., the former New Jersey Governor, not the crackpot son ("Jr."), didn't bat an eye last week when he made a point by mentioning that "my party is nuts today." And he was very clear that he was talking about the Republican national party, not the New Jersey state GOP. And it's all about what's happened to the GOP with the back-to-back defeats of mainstream conservatives John McCain and Mitt Romney by [African-American] Barack Hussein Obama. Let's go back-- via Lee Fang's new book, The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right-- to the time right after Obama beat McCain in 2008. "Eric Cantor," he reminds is, "quickly flamed out in his own early attempt to establish an organization of conservative leaders." It was a sign of things to come for a floundering Republican Party.

Dubbed the National Council for a New America, Cantor’s group recruited several GOP governors, like Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, and lawmakers who would supposedly rebrand what it meant to be conservative and drop the “nostalgia” for old, failed policies. Social conservatives, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell, sharply rebuked Cantor for excluding topics like gay marriage or abortion from the National Council website issue page. Conservative leaders involved in their own conservative movement leadership committees, such as Newt Gingrich and Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, were not initially invited to Cantor’s group. Perkins attacked Cantor for “running scared on the claims of the left and the media that social conservatism is a dead-end for the GOP.” But the true death knell for Cantor’s National Council came when Rush Limbaugh called it a “scam” and a backdoor attempt by “people who don’t believe in conservatism” to “leave Reagan behind.” Cantor mustered only a single public event for his group, a town hall session with former governors Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush at a pizza parlor in suburban Virginia. Shortly after Limbaugh’s comments, Cantor quietly abandoned his effort, which only lasted about a month after it began in the early stages of the Obama presidency. Cantor’s effort at moderation was the only organized attempt for the right to move toward the center after Bush. Its quick death sent a signal that conservative power would remain with activists on the far right.

Four years later, Republicans are thrashing around as incoherently as ever trying, unsuccessfully, to find a message that goes beyond, "the Black guy isn't a legitimate president of the United States." This week Paul Kane asserted in the Washington Post that, in fact, House Republicans have now broken unto fight factions. Keane's "my party if nuts" comment doesn't even begin to tell the story of how extremist anti-American Confederates have infiltrated and taken control of one of America's (formerly) mainstream political parties.

On New Year’s Day, in a cramped room in the Capitol basement, House Republican leaders faced an angry caucus. Democrats had negotiated them into a corner-- virtually every American would be hit with a massive tax increase unless the House agreed to block the hikes for everyone but the wealthy.

A freshman lawmaker seized a microphone and demanded to know how the leaders planned to vote. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) was a yes, but his top two lieutenants were opposed.

“If you’re for this and they’re against, we’ve got problems,” Rep. Stephen Lee Fincher (R-Tenn.) shouted at Boehner and more than 200 lawmakers present, according to Republicans who attended the closed-door meeting. Sure enough, they had problems. Hours later, Democrats helped Boehner pass the measure over the opposition of more than 60 percent of GOP lawmakers.

That vote, to avert the “fiscal cliff,” marked a breaking point for House Republicans, who had disintegrated into squabbling factions, no longer able to agree on-- much less execute-- some of the most basic government functions.

Ever since, Boehner has cautiously tried to steer his party away from that bitter moment, with varying success. A short-term strategy, which conservatives called “the Williamsburg Accord,” emerged from a bruising mid-January retreat. It restored enough unity to permit the House to dodge a government shutdown, badger the Senate into passing its first budget in four years and open investigations of the Obama White House.

But beyond those limited efforts, the House has not approved ambitious legislation this year. Lawmakers have instead focused on trying to re-brand the party around kitchen-table issues-- although even some of those bills have run into trouble. And the most momentous policy decisions, including an immigration overhaul and a fresh deadline for raising the federal debt limit, have no coherent strategy to consolidate Republicans, much less take on the Democrats.

...The leaders have come under intense scrutiny. Barely 36 hours after the caustic New Year’s Day vote, Boehner faced a coup attempt from a clutch of renegade conservatives. The cabal quickly fell apart when several Republicans, after a night of prayer, said God told them to spare the speaker. Still, Boehner came within a few votes of failing to secure his speakership on the initial vote, an outcome that would have forced a second ballot for the first time in nearly a century.

The coming battles will test Boehner’s power and, many Republicans privately suggested, potentially reveal whether it’s time for him to go.

“This is a big summer and fall, a test for all concerned,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a close Boehner ally.

At the moment, House leaders have no plan for passing the test.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, House Republicans filed into the same Capitol basement room, HC5, where they fought on New Year’s Day. They filtered past clearly marked NO SMOKING signs-- which, as always, the Camel-smoking Boehner ignored-- and settled into the same hard plastic chairs that have served as Washington’s toughest ideological fault line of the past 30 months.

The windowless room with two large-screen TVs and a couple of microphones on either side was handed over to rank-and-file Republicans, nearly 40 of whom waited their turn to offer ideas for what the GOP should try to get later this year in return for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling.

Some wanted more energy exploration, some entitlement reform and one lawmaker pushed to attach antiabortion measures to the legislative package, according to Republicans in the room.

This is the price of remaining in charge in today’s House: Boehner must always appear to be working from the bottom up, never seeming to impose his will.

...Many within the party wonder if there’s any approach Republicans will unify behind this time.

Several veteran Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity to criticize their colleagues, said they fear there are too many extreme budget hawks to approve a deal with GOP votes alone, further hampering their leverage in negotiations with the Senate.

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, is trying to rally support for a broad rewrite of the tax code in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling.

But many conservatives consider that insufficient to meet the Williamsburg agreement, which they hold requires a path to balancing the budget within a decade. At Williamsburg, Republicans also agreed to put off the debt ceiling fight until the fall and agreed to fund the government at sequester levels.

Some conservatives are talking about circulating a petition to impose an internal rule forbidding Boehner from advancing legislation that does not have majority support in the Republican Conference, a restriction that would have torpedoed the fiscal cliff bill.

Boehner has ducked specifics about the fall. “We’ve not made any decisions at this point,” he told reporters recently.

He said that Republicans are in a similar spot on immigration, indicating that the rank and file do not understand the issue.

“We’ve got to educate our members and we’ve got to help educate them about the hundreds of issues that are involved,” he said.

...Late last year, leaders finally tried to assert themselves over the restive caucus. They ejected Schweikert and three others from key committees, moves widely viewed as coming from McCarthy, a rare moment when he cracked the whip.

Also, many members of the 2010 class are still sore about the financial quandary that then-Rep. Jeff Landry (R) was in last fall in Louisiana when facing Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr. (R) in an election caused by redistricting. Landry’s friends said he was rebuffed by influential corporate donors, who believed leadership favored the four-term Boustany. Landry lost badly, outspent by a 2-to-1 margin.

Then came the chairman’s race for the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservatives. The most influential lawmakers and activists backed Rep. Tom Graves (Ga.), who had rocky relations with leaders. Yet Rep. Steve Scalise (La.) won the secret ballot-- an outcome thought to be orchestrated behind the scenes by Boehner and Cantor.

If leaders got what they wanted, though, some rank and file still did not come around.

Just past noon on Jan. 3, as the 113th Congress was being sworn in, Boehner faced a rare coup attempt. The normally composed McCarthy stood on the House floor screaming at Rep. Raul R. Labrador (R-Idaho) and Fincher, who had been approached Jan. 1 by other conservatives interested in ousting the speaker. Boehner had pulled Fincher into the speaker’s office that morning for a conversation, several GOP sources said.

The conservatives had decided that Boehner was too overbearing, too top-down. The central gripe was freewheeling backroom negotiations with Obama, talking about trading $1 trillion in new taxes for what they considered modest entitlement reforms.

“It seemed like we did a lot of things without collaboration,” said Rep. Steve Southerland II (R-Fla.), a 47-year-old funeral home operator elected in 2010 whose Capitol Hill townhouse became a regular meeting spot for agitated lawmakers.

About 17 defectors were needed to deny Boehner an outright majority. The hope was that if they could block the speaker on the first ballot, they could convene the GOP conference in HC5 and compel someone else-- maybe Cantor, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) or Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.)-- to challenge Boehner. Even if no one stood up and Boehner won on a second ballot, it would have been a humiliating rebuke.

Southerland, who has previously talked about his role only with the conservative Weekly Standard, said he read the Old Testament the night before the vote. He read the story of Saul and David, as the king of Israel tried to kill the future king. David wins and, with a chance to kill the king, decides to spare Saul.

Southerland woke up convinced that Boehner should be spared. Others, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they, too, prayed before siding with Boehner.

Maybe right-wing sociopaths like Southerland should step away from the Old Testament now and then and try the New one Jesus brought-- the one all conservative loath and fear and only pay lip service to. In any case, Southerland and other teabaggers buckled when the vote came and Boehner was re-elected-- albeit just barely-- by his fractious party.

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Unanimous Consent-- If Not Courageous

Keith took that oath-thing seriously

Yesterday everyone was upset that the Senate had passed-- by voice vote (so no record of who voted for and against it) and by unanimous consent-- a work-around for the sequester for the FAA. TPM pointed out that Eric Cantor was crowing how the craven Democrats had backed down. Cantor's Memo:

As a CQ / Roll Call reporter tweeted last night, "Make no mistake, this FAA fix is a complete, utter cave by Senate Democrats and, if signed, by the White House." This is a sentiment expressed in other press reports over the last 12 hours, including, Politico: "Democrats blink first on aviation” and Chicago Tribune: “White House Scrambles For Damage Control."

Consider that the Democrats opening position was they would only replace the sequester with tax increases. By the first of this week Senator Reid proposed replacing the whole sequester with phony war savings. And by last night, Senate Democrats were adopting our targeted “cut this, not that” approach. This victory is in large part a result of our standing together under the banner of #Obamaflightdelays.

Ezra Klein came right out and said in the Washington Post that The Democrats have lost on sequestration. "The original theory," wrote Klein, "was that the specter of sequestration would be so threatening that Republicans and Democrats would agree to a budget deal rather than permit it to happen. That theory was wrong. The follow-up theory was that the actual pain caused by sequestration would be so great that it would, in a matter of months, push the two sides to agree to a deal. But Democrats just proved that theory wrong, too."

In effect, what Democrats said Friday was that in any case where the political pain caused by sequestration becomes unbearable, they will agree to cancel that particular piece of the bill while leaving the rest of the law untouched. The result is that sequestration is no longer particularly politically threatening, but it’s even more unbalanced: Cuts to programs used by the politically powerful will be addressed, but cuts to programs that affects the politically powerless will persist. It’s worth saying this clearly: The pain of sequestration will be concentrated on those who lack political power.

...It is worth noting how different the Democrats’ approach to sequestration has been to the GOP’s approach to, well, everything. Over the past five years, Republicans have repeatedly accepted short-term political pain for long-term policy gain. That’s the governing political principle behind their threats to shut down the government, breach the debt ceiling, and, for that matter, accept sequestration. Today, Democrats showed they’re not willing to accept even a bit of short-term pain for long-term policy gain. They played a game of chicken with the Republicans, and they lost. Badly.

In the House Friday, the bill passed 361-41, a dozen Boehner-hating Republicans joining just 29 Democrats willing to stand up for principle. I was shocked to see Hoyer was one of the Democrats taking a principled position along with people like Donna Edwards, Barbara Lee, Keith Ellison, John Conyers, Mark Pocan, Rick Nolan, Chellie Pingree, who we usually expect this kind of courageousness from.

You see, what's at stake here is that, of course there should be no sequester on the FAA air traffic controllers. We've come a long way since Reagan. But by signaling to the Republicans that they'll fold on each individual sequester matter, it puts the Republicans-- most of whom don't give a shit about public opinion-- to pick and choose. That means things like Head Start will never get dealt with-- just destroyed. That's what Obama will be remembered for, just or not. And that takes us back to the Senate vote Thursday night.

The unanimous voice vote came around 8pm and only had two participants, Harry Reid and Susan Collins. They were unanimous. Now, to be fair, Reid had requested-- in writing-- that any Democrat who didn't agree to the unanimous consent agreement speak up. Not ONE SPOKE UP... until the next day. Who can argue with what Bernie Sanders said on the Ed Schultz Show Friday after the House vote?

What we have to understand is that clearly there was a serious problem. We're seeing air traffic delays all over the country and that's something that has to be addressed. The problem is that when it's Members of Congress who are flying-- and they do a lot of flying-- when it is business people, upper class people who fly, we respond. But what my worry is, you've got 70 thousand kids that are going to lose slots in Head Start [and] I don't think our Republican friends are going to be quite so quick to respond to the serious crisis and what it means to working families. When you've got folks not getting the public health that they need, I don't think our Republican friends are going to be there. When teachers are going to be laid off, I don't think our Republican friends are going to be there. Clearly the answer is we need to end sequestration but do it in a way that makes sense, which is to have more revenue coming in, primarily, in my view, by ending these outrageous loopholes, such that one out of four corporations in America pays nothing in taxes. But not just cut, cut, cut.

I asked another very progressive congressman, a House Member, why he voted for the bill today. "Because the world is better with it than without it," he told me, "even though it’s a stupid way to accomplish that." We went back and forth a little and I mentioned that the Republicans would get their way on everything about the sequester they had manipulated Obama and the foolish Democrats into to begin with. "It’s worse than that," he told me. "What we voted on doesn’t end the sequester for air traffic control. All it does is give the White House the authority to move a certain amount of FAA money from certain other accounts to the air traffic control account. The FAA still is subject to the sequester cut, in full. It’s just a device to shift blame from the Republicans to the White House if anything goes wrong. Notwithstanding that, it’s better than the status quo, and I’ve got the world’s 23rd largest airport to think about."

Jerry Nadler (D-NY), a senior member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, voted for it as well, pointing to over 3,500 flight delays reported since Sunday "as a result of the indiscriminate budget cuts which were mandated by the so-called sequester." His statement:

“While this bill is not nearly good enough, I nevertheless support its effort to help the FAA deal with the effects of severe and misguided budget cuts. Indiscriminate, across-the-board budget cuts were never a good idea, and their effects on things like air travel were all too predictable. So while this bill may help the FAA to better handle such draconian budget cuts, it unfortunately does nothing to prevent equally damaging cuts to other critical public sector programs. It does nothing for the 70,000 children who will be forced off of Head Start, or for the millions of Americans who will have to wait longer for new prescription drugs to reach the market, or for the 600,000 women, infants, and children who will be left hungry after being dropped from the supplemental nutrition program. Only by repealing the sequester outright can we avoid these severe budget cuts and prevent their crippling effects on vital public services.

“Unfortunately, instead of addressing these problems and working to create jobs, Republicans in Congress have spent their time pursuing a single-minded obsession with cutting government spending. Meanwhile, the deficit has been shrinking at the fastest rate since the demobilization after WWII. In this fiscal year alone we have seen deficit estimates fall 15% on the strength of our growing economy. The deficit was originally projected to be $900 billion. Earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office revised it down to $850 billion. And just last week it was revised down again to $775 billion. That is a $125 billion savings. It is enough already. With these savings alone, we could cancel the sequester without increasing the deficit by a penny.

“We are already reducing the deficit by more than we planned, and the results of these cutbacks are being felt across the nation in ways that slow our economy, hurt the elderly, take food out of the mouths of women and children, and undermine our students as they try to prepare for their futures. We can no longer afford Republican attempts to pursue such a contractionary fiscal policy during a period of high unemployment and stagnant middle class wages.

“In order to build on our economic recovery, we need to stop all of the severe budget cuts-- not just those affecting air travelers. It is time to cancel sequestration and start pursuing policies that will actually help Americans get back to work.”

So... what I would ask Nadler and Sanders and our other progressive friends whose hearts I know are in the right place, where do we go from here? Is there a strategy? We seem to have unilaterally disarmed. Is all that's left starting petitions and wringing our hands? By the way, Keith Ellison, one of the few strategic thinks among the Democrats, voted NO. He explained exactly why to Minneapolis voters:

“I oppose the harmful furloughs for air traffic controllers, which create unnecessary flight delays, and impact our hardworking pilots, flight attendants, and airport workers. Air traffic controllers keep our families safe and support an economy that relies heavily on air travel to function. But avoiding these cuts should not come at the expense of millions of teachers, researchers, and American families who are also feeling the devastating impacts of the sequester. By maintaining cuts to students on Head Start, women and children on nutrition assistance, and funding for cancer research, we are neglecting the communities who can least afford it.

“This bill does not address the 8,000 fewer students who will receive primary and secondary education assistance in Minnesota or the 100 teachers and aides who may lose their jobs because of it. It does not help the more than 2,000 civilian Department of Defense employees in Minnesota who will be furloughed-- losing $12.5 million to support their families. And it does not help the more than 3,000 Minnesotans who will not be tested for HIV because the Minnesota Department of Health will lose about $127,000 in funding.

“The flight delays this week are only one example of what will happen if Republicans in Washington get the huge budget cuts they are demanding. Instead of only addressing the most visible impacts of these harmful cuts, we should fully repeal the sequester and adopt a balanced approach that asks wealthy corporations and individuals to pay their fair share. It’s time to stop pushing broken ideas and start investing in America’s working families.”

My cowardly congressman, Adam Schiff, a New Dem, happily voted to give the Republicans their way. The word courageousness is not part of his vocabulary. Thank God there are a few like Ellison around. In fact... you can find Keith here if you want to let him know you support what he did Friday.

I've pretty much given up on Obama altogether. I voted for a protest candidate in November. But he's still the president and there's nothing but worse on the political horizon. This morning, though, he used his weekly address to talk about dumping Sequestration altogether and replacing it with a Grand Bargain.

Two months ago, Congress allowed a series of automatic budget cuts to fall across the federal government that would do the opposite. In Washington-speak, these cuts were called the “sequester.” It was a bad idea then. And as the country saw this week, it’s a bad idea now.

Because of these reckless cuts, there are parents whose kids just got kicked out of Head Start programs scrambling for a solution. There are seniors who depend on programs like Meals on Wheels to live independently looking for help. There are military communities-- families that have already sacrificed enough-- coping under new strains. All because of these cuts.

This week, the sequester hurt travelers, who were stuck for hours in airports and on planes, and rightly frustrated by it. And, maybe because they fly home each weekend, the Members of Congress who insisted these cuts take hold finally realized that they actually apply to them too.

Republicans claimed victory when the sequester first took effect, and now they’ve decided it was a bad idea all along. Well, first, they should look at their own budget. If the cuts they propose were applied across the board, the FAA would suffer cuts three times deeper.

So Congress passed a temporary fix. A Band-Aid. But these cuts are scheduled to keep falling across other parts of the government that provide vital services for the American people. And we can’t just keep putting Band-Aids on every cut.  It’s not a responsible way to govern. There is only one way to truly fix the sequester: by replacing it before it causes further damage.

A couple weeks ago, I put forward a budget that replaces the next several years of these dumb cuts with smarter cuts; reforms our tax code to close wasteful special interest loopholes; and invests in things like education, research, and manufacturing that will create new jobs right now.

So I hope Members of Congress will find the same sense of urgency and bipartisan cooperation to help the families still in the crosshairs of these cuts. They may not feel the pain felt by kids kicked off Head Start, or the 750,000 Americans projected to lose their jobs because of these cuts, or the long-term unemployed who will be further hurt by them. But that pain is real.

The American people worked too hard, for too long, rebuilding from one economic crisis just to see your elected officials keep causing more. Our economy is growing. Our deficits are shrinking.  We’re creating jobs on a consistent basis. But we need to do more to help middle-class families get ahead, and give more folks a chance to earn their way into the middle class.  And we can, if we work together. That’s what you expect. That’s what I’m going to work every single day to help deliver.

But don't expect him to veto it. He won't. He's not FDR... and never will be. We've seen what he is.

Bingo!

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