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The United States Marine Band's 215th anniversary concert scheduled for Saturday, July 6, 2013, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has been canceled due to sequestration. This event will not be rescheduled.

With Congress increasingly unable to resolve budget disputes, federal programs on automatic pilot are consuming ever larger amounts of government resources. The trend helps older Americans, who receive the bulk of Social Security and Medicare benefits, at the expense of younger people. This generational shift draws modest public debate. But it alarms some policy advocates, who say the United States is reducing vital investments in the future. Because Democrats and Republicans can't reach a grand bargain on deficit spending — with mutually accepted spending cuts and revenue hikes — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid keep growing, largely untouched. Steady expansions...

Federal Reserve officials have mapped out a strategy for winding down an unprecedented $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program meant to spur the economy—an effort to preserve flexibility and manage highly unpredictable market expectations. Officials say they plan to reduce the amount of bonds they buy in careful and potentially halting steps, varying their purchases as their confidence about the job market and inflation evolves. The timing on when to start is still being debated. Enlarge Image image image The Fed's strategy for how and when to wind down the program is of intense interest in financial markets. While the strategy being...

With furloughs looming, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter this week paid tribute to the job done by the Pentagon's civilian work force while warning that there soon would be fewer of them doing it. In a series of appearances that fell during Public Service Recognition Week, Carter said the department had yet to come to a decision on how many furlough days to impose to meet the budget-cutting demands of the Congressional sequester process in the current fiscal year. Carter called the across-the-board sequester cuts "stupid," and said they would result in the loss of five to six percent of...

Defense Department leaders spent months warning Congress that military readiness would begin to erode if sequestration went into effect on March 1. The Navy and Marine Corps are telling lawmakers that it's now happening and that things will only get worse from here. Across government, agencies say the impact of sequestration will be somewhat insidious. But in the case of DoD's two sea services, they're already feeling it, officials told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness. "Due to reduced training and maintenance, almost all of our non-deployed ships and aviation squadrons are soon going to be less than fully...

<p>Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun. Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments, and rethink its principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination.</p>

Once again, the Pentagon wants to scrap a weapon – in this case, the Abrams tank – that Congress has an interest in preserving. But with 'sequester' cuts, the tradeoff will be civilian furloughs. Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno testifies on Capitol Hill on April 23. The Army’s hulking Abrams tank, built to dominate the enemy in combat, is proving to be equally hard to beat in a budget battle, because of a bipartisan push to spend an extra $436 million on tanks, which the Pentagon does not want. Even as the Pentagon struggles to make some tough, congressionally...

The Pecksniffs of America had nothing but scorn for Congress' vote last week to stop furloughs of air traffic controllers, which were ostensibly mandated under the 2011 Budget Control Act. Congress failed to act to stop cuts to Head Start and Meals On Wheels, critics sneered, but did stop the Federal Aviation Administration cuts largely because they hit lawmakers where they live -- on the planes that fly them to and from their home districts. Nonsense. Congress did what it was supposed to do. Capitol Hill responded to the flying public's righteous anger. There was a fear factor: If a...

PinocchiObama is at it again, using his weekly address to the nation to spin tall tales, demonize and scapegoat Republicans, misidentify the nation's problems, and propose the exact wrong solutions. He opened up this week's fiction with the umpteenth repetition of his empty claim that the nation's top priority "must be growing the economy, creating good jobs and rebuilding opportunity for the middle class." How many times has Obama promised to "pivot" toward a "laserlike focus" on jobs? How interesting that he chose to repeat this very same claim just as the Government Accountability Institute released a report concluding that...

Senate Majority Leader Reid, House Majority Leader Cantor Deride Across-the-Board Cuts -In Joint Appearance, Two Hill Leaders Don't Outline Way To Replace Cuts LOS ANGELES(MNI) - In a rare joint appearance, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Republican, said Monday they are frustrated by across-the-board spending cuts that have been mandated by the sequestration process, but they did not agree on how these cuts should be altered or eliminated. Appearing on a panel at the Milken Institute Global Conference, Reid and Cantor took turns blasting the sequestration process. Speaking of sequestration, Reid...

That’s the simple reality of Friday’s vote to ease the pain for the Federal Aviation Administration. By assenting to it, Democrats have agreed to sequestration for the foreseeable future. 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...

A typo is keeping President Obama from signing legislation designed to end budget-related FAA air traffic controller furloughs blamed for widespread flight delays, a congressional source told CNN Saturday. But the fix is going into effect anyway, and the system will be back to normal by Sunday, the FAA said. Apparently the holdup boils down to an "s" needing to be added somewhere in the Senate version of the bill -- it's not clear which word is the culprit. The House fixed the typo in the version it passed Friday, and the Senate plans to fix it on Tuesday, a...

... k Obama chided Republicans on Saturday for approving a plan to ease air-traffic delays caused by federal spending cuts while leaving budget cuts that affect children and the elderly untouched. The Senate and the House of Representatives backed a plan this week to give the Department of Transportation flexibility to cover immediate salaries of air traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration who had been furloughed as part of budget cuts known as "sequester.

WASHINGTON – Legislation to end furloughs of air traffic controllers and delays for millions of travelers is headed to a House vote after a dark-of-night vote in the Senate that took place after most lawmakers had left the Capitol for a weeklong vacation. The bill passed late Thursday without even a roll call vote, and House officials indicated it likely would be brought up for quick approval there. Under the legislation, the Federal Aviation Administration would gain authority to transfer up to $253 million from accounts that are flush into other programs, to "prevent reduced operations and staffing" through the...

The Senate took the first step toward circumventing sequestration Thursday night with a bipartisan vote that would put furloughed air traffic controllers back on the job. The House is expected to take up the measure Friday, and the White House has promised to consider any bill which it receives. The Senate vote came in response to passengers angered this week by long delays at several major airports. If the Senate bill wins House approval and is signed into law by President Obama, the furloughed controllers are not expected to return to work before Saturday

<p>WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate late on Thursday approved legislation to provide enough funding for federal air traffic controllers through Sept. 30 to end furloughs that have brought widespread airline delays. Several Senate aides said an agreement had been reached on a bill giving the Department of Transportation new flexibility to use unspent funds to cover the costs of air traffic controllers and other essential employees at the Federal Aviation Administration.</p>

SEOUL — The Army’s chief of staff has warned Congress that steep military budget cuts and canceled training exercises are hurting the Army’s readiness, including the ability to respond to a potential conflict on the tense Korean peninsula. While troops in South Korea are “obviously at a high state of readiness,” Gen. Ray Odierno told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that sequestration has led to a reduction in training for 80 percent of the Army. Among the cuts: 37,000 flying hours, impending furloughs for civilian workers, and six brigade maneuver combat training center rotations. The cancellation of...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama is clearly playing a nasty political game with the air traffic controller furloughs that have forced severe airline delays across the country. It's not the first time he's exploited the budget-cutting sequestration law for political purposes. Earlier this year, he tried to stir up fears that our economy would be hit by fiscal Armageddon if the Republican House didn't submit to his tax-hiking, big-spending demands. But his hysterical claims that our food would be unsafe, America's defenses would crumble and the elderly would lose their benefits have proven to be groundless. A headline in Thursday's Washington...

That was fast. After barely a work week of hours-long airport delays and missed international connections, both parties have slunk away from the $85 billion in across-the-board cuts that were lopping $637 million from the Federal Aviation Administration’s budget. But wonks shouldn’t forget the FAA cuts too quickly. President Obama has unwittingly made the best case for privatizing the nation’s aviation-control system since controllers went on strike 32 years ago. Air passengers were outraged this week — but they should have been doubly outraged. Unlike, say, Medicare, the FAA is supposed to be fully funded by the users of its...

On a slow news day, this qualifies as breaking news. Democrats and Republicans have come together in rare bipartisan fashion to slap down the FAA’s sequester antics by increasing the spending flexibility of the agency to deal with a 4% reduction of a budget that’s gone up almost 10% over the last six years: In rare bipartisan accord, normally quarrelsome U.S. lawmakers passed a measure designed to end budget-related air traffic controller furloughs blamed for widespread flight delays.The House of Representatives approved the legislation, capping a major congressional initiative as delays snarled traffic at airports. The House vote comes a...

The Obama administration's second installment of sequester scare tactics is working about as well as its first go 'round. Run away: The White House has endorsed a plan to eliminate FAA spending cuts that have cause air travel delays across the country. The agency has been forced to furlough air traffic controllers as part of the automatic budget cuts that kicked in this spring. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to end the cuts by claiming savings from the draw down of war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans reject his proposal calling it an accounting gimmick. Of course it's...

In congressional testimony on Wednesday, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief Michel Huerta cited his agency’s Next Generation Air Transportation System — NextGen for short — as an example of the critical “investments” the federal government is making and must continue to make in air-traffic-control infrastructure, even as controllers are being furloughed, causing widespread delays and disruption at the nation’s airports. NextGen is an ambitious multiyear, multibillion-dollar project to increase air-traffic efficiency through technological innovation. Representative Hal Rogers (R., Ky.) asked Huerta whether, “in light of the current situation,” funding for NextGen projects should “have priority over the operation of commercial...

As travellers nationwide are learning, the White House has decided to express its dislike of the sequester—otherwise known as modestly smaller government—by choosing to cut basic air traffic control services. We wrote about this human- rights violation on Tuesday in "Flight Delays as Political Strategy," but the story gets worse the closer we look. Start with the Federal Aviation Administration, better known as the Postal Service without the modern technology. Flyers directly fund two-thirds of the FAA's budget through 17 airline taxes and fees—about 20% of the cost of a $300 domestic ticket, up from 7% in the 1970s. Yet...

This week, the Obama administration furloughed 14,500 air traffic controllers -- staffers will lose two days of work per month -- ostensibly to comply with the 2011 Budget Control Act's $85 billion in sequester cuts this year. The Federal Aviation Administration's share is $637 million. So expect delays at the airport. That's the idea, but it didn't have to be. The Obama administration has chosen to hold airline travel hostage in its never-ending effort to extort further tax increases from the GOP. The administration argues that its hands are tied. By law, the FAA must cut spending across the...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Mike Perrone, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO (PASS), which represents over 11,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, including systems specialists and aviation safety inspectors, released the following statement regarding the continued furloughing of FAA employees: "The furloughing of FAA employees is having an impact on the aviation system and the flying public is noticing. Systems specialists, aviation safety inspectors, aeronautical specialists, examiners and thousands of other FAA employees work behind the scenes to ensure that planes take off and land on time, equipment is restored, and planes are safe to fly. These employees...

Yes, you also warned us that we wouldn’t have meat inspections and that children would be denied vaccinations, remember? During Tuesday’s briefing, after the news from the FAA that employee furloughs were starting to cause flight delays (watch the vid at RCP): I find it fascinating that Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, is decrying the sequester that he decried in the past and then supported. This is a result of the sequester being implemented. We made it clear that there would be these kinds of negative effects if Congress failed to take reasonable action...

Army could lose 100,000 soldiers due to sequestration. Of all the military services facing budget pressure this year, the Army is in the direst of straits. The budget Congress finally passed a month ago will help matters, but the service says it's still more than $15 billion short of funds in fiscal 2013. Army senior leaders told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that the elimination of a continuing resolution and the passage of a formal budget only fixed about a third of the funding problem they face this year. The sequestration cuts that Congress left in place will force...

Rolling flight delays. Cancellations. Heavy sighs and grim smirks in packed airport concourses. Has the sequester, Washington’s much-debated automatic spending cut package, finally landed? In response to the sequester deal struck by President Obama and Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration this weekend began to furlough its entire 47,000-person workforce (including 13,000 air traffic controllers) to abide by some $637 billion in automatic spending cuts that have to be made by October. The cutbacks mean each employee has to stay at home, unpaid, one day every other week. The furloughs had an immediate impact on travel on Monday, contributing to two-hour...

Since the sequester was a cut in the increase, not a cut in the baseline spending, why is the FAA cutting $600 million dollars and blaming the furloughs on the sequester? Did I miss something? BTW, didn't Bob Woodward say that the sequester was Lew's idea and was jumped on by Obama?

Pentagon civilian leaders, contractors and lobbyists who would like to see more predictability in the military’s budget should start looking beyond the parochial interests of the defense sector and take a broader view of the nation’s fiscal troubles, a veteran Washington insider advised. Since the president unveiled last week his $526.6 billion military budget proposal for fiscal year 2014, one of the story lines has been the administration’s refusal to lower spending in accordance with the caps set by Congress in the 2011 Budget Control Act. Another dominant topic has been the impact of automatic sequester cuts on the military...

BOX ELDER, SD - The B-1 Bombers at Ellsworth Air Force Base won't be flying anytime soon. "Our local combat squadron, the 37th combat squadron will not fly between now, and right now we're planning until October first," 28th Bomb Wing Colonel Kevin Kennedy said. Because of sequestration the military is coping with close to $500 billion in cuts to its budget over the next decade. The groundings will help Air Combat Command cut a total of 45 thousand flight hours across the board. "Bottom line, though, this is something that we need to do to make sure we're ready...

Fort Bragg is canceling its July 4th celebration because of budget cuts and worker furloughs. The event - a tradition for more than 30 years - usually attracts 50,000 people and includes what many people believe to be among the best fireworks shows in the region. "Our reduced operating budget for the remainder of this year forces many very tough decisions," said Lt. Gen. Daniel B. Allyn, commanding general of 18th Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg ... Fort Bragg announced other cuts and reductions today

Obama's Fiscal Year 2014 budget includes $30 million in new funding to "track gun violence" and to research strategies that might prevent it.

As federal departments and agencies deal with automatic budget cuts and the possibility of furloughs for federal workers, those forced pay cuts have now arrived on Capitol Hill, as Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) became the first lawmaker to officially announce staff furloughs due to the $85 billion sequester. "Begich’s staff began mandatory furloughs in mid-March and more than half of his staff will experience a cut in their salary this year," said a press release issued by Begich's office on Wednesday. The same release also said that Begich would be returning some of his salary to the Treasury to match...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney told members of House Republican leadership Tuesday to be wary of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the escalating situation in the Korean Peninsula. Cheney attended a leadership meeting in the office of Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio before walking to the office of Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California to speak with the GOP whip team. He came at the behest of McCarthy, according to aides and members. Cheney declined to say what he told the members, saying it was a private meeting. “I’m concerned about it, of course, like I’m sure...

On Barack and Michelle Obama's schedule for today, this event is listed: 7:30PM THE PRESIDENT and THE FIRST LADY host a concert celebrating Memphis Soul music as part of their “In Performance at the White House” series; THE PRESIDENT delivers remarks As the White House has previously announced, Justin Timberlake (who will be making his White House debut), Al Green, Ben Harper, Queen Latifah, Cyndi Lauper, Joshua Ledet, Sam Moore, Charlie Musselwhite, Mavis Staples, and others will be performing at the exclusive event. But while the performers are known, the guest list for the private event has not yet been...

Just over one third of U.S. military personnel say they support the Republican Party, down from nearly a half in 2006, according to the latest annual Military Times poll. But the survey shows that underlying political attitudes among troops remain more or less unchanged, with a plurality of 41 percent continuing to describe themselves as “conservative” or “very conservative,” compared with 44 percent in 2006. Support for the Democrats remains low, the publication reports. About 14 percent of respondents to the latest poll call themselves Democrats, the same as in 2006. Support for the Democrats remains low, the publication reports....

The New York Times reports: President Obama plans to return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury in solidarity with federal workers who are going to be furloughed as part of the budget cutting process known as sequester, an administration official said Wednesday. The voluntary move would be retroactive to March 1 and apply through the rest of the calendar year, the official said. The White House came up with the 5 percent figure to approximate the level of automatic spending cuts to non-defense federal agencies that took effect that day. Politico adds: "The salary for the president, as...

This week marks the one-month anniversary of one of the most terrifying events in American history: the sequester. So, with great trepidation, I have climbed out of my bunker to survey the devastation and send off this column. I was shocked to discover that somehow mankind had survived. Government spending had been cut, or at least the rate of growth had been slowed, yet everywhere I looked people were going about their daily lives as if nothing had happened. There has been no outbreak of diseases from tainted, uninspected meat. Airplanes have not fallen from the sky; indeed, they continue...

Next week Justin Timberlake, Al Green, Queen Latifah, and many others will perform at the White House in a "Memphis Soul" concert, the White House announced today. "As part of their 'In Performance at the White House' series, the President and First Lady will invite music legends and contemporary major artists to the White House for a celebration of Memphis Soul music. The program will include performances by Alabama Shakes, William Bell, Steve Cropper, Al Green, Ben Harper, Queen Latifah, Cyndi Lauper, Joshua Ledet, Sam Moore, Charlie Musselwhite, Mavis Staples and Justin Timberlake, with Booker T. Jones as music director...

My brother-in-law is fighting stage 4 prostate cancer. He just received this letter from his oncologist: April 2, 2013 Dear Patients and Friends of The Zangmeister Cancer Center, You may have heard about "sequestration," the automatic spending cuts to defense, education, healthcare and other programs that are the result of the failure of Congress to compromise on how to responsibly rein in spending. Unfortunately, sequestration will have a severe adverse impact on cancer care. That's because it will cut payments to providers – your physician – for chemotherapy and other critical cancer drugs, paying for most at below cost. If...

Amidst increased sequestration cuts and North Korean threats of hostility, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel expressed deep concern on Thursday over the increased danger that North Korea now poses requiring the U.S. to be prepared for “any eventuality.” Hagel’s concern is in agreement with Heritage Foundation expert Bruce Klingner, who the previous evening wrote that “[t]he danger of North Korean miscalculation has increased further with new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un emboldened by recent nuclear and missile test successes and the knowledge that Seoul and Washington have never struck back in any significant way after previous deadly attacks.”...

Implementation of the taxes and fees from President Obama’s healthcare law is on track despite the cutbacks at the IRS from sequestration. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), enacted 2010 and derided by Republicans as “ObamaCare,” contains the broadest set of tax changes enacted in some two decades — more than 40 alterations in all, including penalties on people who choose not to purchase insurance. But while IRS and Treasury officials have warned of reduced services as employees are furloughed under the sequester, neither agency has expressed any concern that the automatic spending cuts would delay the rollout of the healthcare...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Air Force says it cost $2.1 million to send two nuclear-capable B-2 bombers on a training exercise over South Korea that was widely viewed as a show of force in response to weeks of threats from North Korea.</p>

Speaker John Boehner told fellow House Republicans in an Easter week memo that his decision to allow the sequestration cuts to take effect has forced President Barack Obama and the Democrats to confront economic issues they have long been avoiding. “We forged a new tactical plan that focused on using our limited leverage to maximum effect in support of the reforms needed to support economic growth and job creation for all Americans,” Boehner wrote in the memo distributed to House Republicans on Thursday. … The memo noted that GOP efforts had forced Senate Democrats to produce their own budget plan...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will press Congress to pass new tax incentives and other flexibility measures aimed at attracting more private sector investment in infrastructure projects around the country, a senior administration official said.</p> <p>The president will flesh out the details of his proposals during a speech Friday at a Miami port that is undergoing $2 billion in upgrades, funded by public and private money. In his quick trip to South Florida, Obama will try to show the public that the economy remains his top priority in the midst of high-profile campaigns on immigration reform and gun control.</p>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday that North Korea's provocative actions and belligerent tone had "ratcheted up the danger" on the Korean peninsula, but he denied that the United States had aggravated the situation by flying stealth bombers to the region. "We have to take seriously every provocative, bellicose word and action that this new young leader has taken so far" since coming to power, Hagel told a Pentagon news conference, referring to Kim Jong-un.

Rank and file told to conserve as Big Sis buys by the billion At least one branch of the U.S. military is scrimping and saving every bullet it can while the Department of Homeland Security is on a bullet-buying spree. Marine Corps Commandant James F. Amos blames sequester budget cuts for causing the Corps to have to scrimp and save every bullet. In a video to Marines, he says, “I ask you to save every round, every gallon of gas, that you take every single aspect, or opportunity, in training to get the most bang for the buck.” “This is...

The Democratic chairman and a Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee called on President Barack Obama today to conduct air strikes in Syria and help establish a “safe haven” for opposition groups. Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan and Senator John McCain of Arizona cited reports of chemical weapons used in Syria in urging Obama to take military action. “We write to express our strong belief that it is in our national security interest to take more active steps, together with our friends and allies in the Middle East and Europe, to stop the killing in Syria and force...

Come on in...it's all free, courtesy of the American taxpayer!- by John HillStand With ArizonaJoe Wilson is right....again.Remember Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and his outburst at Obama's 2010 State of the Union address? Here's a refresher: Obama said his healthcare plan would not cover illegal aliens - twice. Wilson shouted "You lie!" to the outrage of many, and for which he was later censured by Pelosi & Co. Democrats said it was ridiculous to suggest that illegal aliens would EVER be able to receive Obama Care benefits. Wilson was right, of course, as SWA pointed out and way back in...