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Military pay is exempt from the automatic budget cuts, known as sequestration, that went into effect earlier this month. But scores of military programs that impact service members in their everyday lives — including funding tuition assistance and family-assistance programs — are not protected from the across-the-board budget reductions. And that will certainly have an effect on service members, officials from the Defense Department and the military services told the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on military personnel. The Army and the Air Force both announced this week they would cut tuition-assistance programs for new applicants. Under sequestration, and the...

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted details of a no bid contract with weapons manufacturer Sig Sauer, worth $4.5 million over the next five years. The contract is identical to the one DHS announced last week with Heckler & Koch. Both contracts are for $900,000 worth of "replacement parts" a year, for weapons used by DHS agents. ... DHS is purchasing 2,717 'Mine Resistant Protected' vehicles

Budget: Over a hundred jobs are at Homeland Security, which is letting criminal aliens go despite billions unspent from last fiscal year, with hundreds more jobs available at an Interior Department that warns of park closings. 'We're doing our very best to minimize the impacts of sequester. But there's only so much I can do," DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said. With regard to the release of illegal aliens from detention in anticipation of cuts due to sequestration, "I'm supposed to have 34,000 detention beds for immigration. How do I pay for those?" Well, Madam Secretary, like other federal departments and...

The Obama administration has employed a variety of tactics to frighten the public about the possible consequences of sequestration. Air-traffic control towers will be shuttered. Children will be thrown off Head Start. The nation’s guard against terrorism will be lowered. Republicans, and in some cases the press, have poked some pretty big holes in some of the administration’s most extravagant claims. But no one has done a better job than a little-known GOP congressman, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, who took on officials from the Centers for Disease Control at a House hearing last week. The occasion was a meeting...

President Obama says he's not the one who canceled the White House tours. He made the comments in an interview with ABC News. "[O]ne more question about the spending cuts," said the interviewer from ABC News. "You’ve been takin’ a lotta heat for this cancellation of the White House tours. They get– the Secret Service says it’s costs about $74,000 a week. Was canceling them really necessary?" "You know, I have to say this was not– a decision that went up to the White House. But th– what the Secret Service explained to us was that they’re gonna have to...

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told The Daily Caller that his department is “making reductions everywhere” to deal with the sequester, including furloughing Federal Aviation Administration workers. But less than seven months ago, LaHood said he was “very proud” of putting 65,000 people to work with $48 billion in federal stimulus funds — a figure that amounted to $738,461 per job. (RELATED VIDEO: LaHood boasts of DOT stimulus spending) On Tuesday TheDC asked LaHood why his agency is closing as many as 238 air traffic control towers instead of cutting its $179 million travel budget.

The National Institutes of Health awarded a Boston hospital more than $1.5 million to figure out why nearly three-quarters of lesbians are overweight — calling the disparities a significant public health issue. FOLLOW TODD ON FACEBOOK FOR CULTURE WAR NEWS. CLICK HERE TO JOIN! “It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese, compared to half of heterosexual women,” according to a description of the grant. The taxpayer money was awarded to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston to study the relationship between...

Despite sequester, feds spend over $1.5 million to study lesbian obesity Over the last two years, the National Institutes of Health have awarded Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston over $1.5 million to learn why nearly three-quarters of lesbians are overweight, Todd Starnes reported Tuesday. According to the NIH, gay males do not suffer from obesity as much as lesbians, and the government wants to know why, calling the disparity an issue of “high public-health significance." "It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight...

~SNIP~ For example, among the formula of budget sequestration’s across-the-board cuts, split 50-50 between military and non-military spending, AmeriCorps will likely lose out. This core program, supported and used by many nonprofits, will likely lose member slots—in the thousands—and in all likelihood there will be a reduction in the level of federal commitment to each AmeriCorps member. Young Invincibles and the National Priorities Project reported that the likely cut in the AmeriCorps program itself would be $38 million. Remember that AmeriCorps is actually a suite of programs, including AmeriCorps State and National, AmeriCorps VISTA, and the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community...

If Rep. Paul Ryan wants people to take his budget manifestos seriously, he should be honest about his ambition: not so much to make the federal government fiscally sustainable as to make it smaller. You will recall that the Ryan Budget was a big Republican selling point in last year’s election. Most famously, Ryan proposed turning Medicare into a voucher program. He offered the usual GOP recipe of tax cuts — to be offset by closing certain loopholes, which he would not specify — along with drastic reductions in non-defense “discretionary” spending. If the plan Ryan offered had been enacted,...

**SNIP** Principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest had been briefed carefully in advance for this question. All White House briefers are briefed carefully in advance for briefings at a cost of what it probably takes to conduct White House tours. Earnest said that it was a “shame” that the “people who come to the White House on a yearly basis to tour” would get stiffed, but that “the people that the president is most concerned about, though, are the 750,000 Americans who stand to lose their job … as a result of the sequester.” But this is like your mother...

Air shows, tourism big losers as budget cuts ground Blue Angels, other military stunt flyers Russ Bynum, The Associated Press Mar 10, 2013 01:29:06 PM SAVANNAH, Georgia – Deep budget cuts in Washington mean military flight teams will likely be no-shows at air shows across the U.S. starting this spring, leaving dozens of host cities bracing for thinner crowds and lost tourism dollars. When $85 billion in automatic cuts kicked in March 1, the Air Force cancelled shows at bases from Florida to Arizona and grounded its formation-flying pilots, the Thunderbirds. The Army’s Golden Knights parachute team also cancelled performances....

An anonymous White House aide says that the president reaching out to Republicans is a "joke," a waste of time, and stunt for the media. As Ron Fournier of National Journal reports: Obama’s sudden burst of public outreach coincides with a drop in his approval ratings, noted first by Democratic pollsters advising the White House last week and now surfacing in a spate of public polls. This raises the uncomfortable question: Is this schmooze-a-thon a legitimate act of humility and leadership or a cynical public display? I can’t answer that question because I don’t pretend to know Obama’s state of...

<p>Could the sequester reach into your pocket and hold on to your tax refund? There's talk that a chunk of the more than $300 billion in IRS refunds each year could be delayed if the sequester forces the agency to furlough workers.</p>

It goes by many names --- crying wolf, Chicken Little, or just plain hyperbole. What happens to a politician who insists that the world will end unless his policies are implemented, only to have the globe keep on turning as usual with little impact? Barack Obama may be finding out, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll (via Jim Geraghty): The budget cuts in Washington have not hit home in America, at least not yet.A plurality of Americans think federal spending cuts will have no effect at all on them or their families, according to a new McClatchy-Marist Poll. At the...

After closing the doors to public tours in an effort to save money, White House officials haven't yet said if sequester cuts will result in furloughs or layoffs for its senior staffers ... In the field of energy and climate change alone, President Obama in 2012 employed three advisers making at least $100,000 -- though one has since left. The president kept on staff a "deputy assistant" for energy and climate change, Heather Zichal, making $140,000; a "special assistant" for energy and environment, Nathaniel Keohane; and a "deputy director" for energy and climate change, Dan Utech. Together, their salaries totaled...

I don't use the word "defense" much when talking about the federal budget because it always prejudices the conversation. U.S. military spending isn't always defensive; it often is appropriately offensive and changing the name in 1949 from the Department of War to the Department of Defense should go down as one of the top 10 greatest public relations achievements of all time. So why did I violate my own rule and use the word "defense" in the headline to this post? To make a point: In spite of all the spin and all the warm feelings Americans supposedly have about...

After closing the doors to public tours in an effort to save money, White House officials haven't yet said if sequester cuts will result in furloughs or layoffs for its senior staffers -- as is happening with rank-and-file in other executive branch agencies. But there are dozens of senior employees and other presidential "assistants" to choose from if the administration were to look at cutting the six-figure salaries from its payroll. In the field of energy and climate change alone, President Obama in 2012 employed three advisers making at least $100,000 -- though one has since left. The president kept...

President Obama will formally inaugurate Organizing for Action, his newly-formed independent advocacy group, with a headline speech Wednesday night before the group's Founders' Summit in Washington. Obama's appearance, confirmed to ABC News by an OFA official, will be his first in-person with the group's core team of advisers, donors and grassroots organizers since its formation following the 2012 election. It comes as Obama seeks to re-energize his expansive grassroots campaign infrastructure around top second-term priorities - from new gun-control measures to comprehensive immigration reform and a plan to replace sequester - and cement the foundation for his presidential legacy. The...

Check out this interesting video that dispels Obama hype that sequester cuts will reduce the number of vaccinations for kids.