More Than a Mess

Several observers termed the shutdown that separated 800,000 federal workers from their jobs on Tuesday a “mess.” A few called it a “debacle.” I think stronger language might be in order to describe what a small group of Tea Party demagogues in Congress has foisted on our country.

In addition to ruining the lives of a lot of innocent people, many already suffering financially from the effects of a funding sequester, what the ultra-right wingers have done will waste vast amounts of our tax money and could be downright dangerous for many of us.

The government shut down briefly several times during my quarter century of employment with the U.S. Forest Service. In addition, a major unit merger advertised as a cost-saving measure seriously affected my work and the work of those around me. It ought to be obvious that when employees are engaged in making contingency plans for big changes in their organization, or carrying them out, they have little time to do the normal work they are paid to do. That work has to be done some time. Often, catching up after order is restored involves hiring additional employees or paying contractors. Each day the current shutdown continues will cost us billions of scarce tax dollars to be paid in the future.

Others have thoroughly discussed the huge negative impact on our still-fragile economy of abruptly canceling the wages of 800,000 people and suspending contract work that pumps mega dollars into private firms. Tying up federal funds also has a ripple-down effect that damages important state and local government activities

YOU are nonessential. (well, maybe)

Far scarier than economic consequences are risks to public health and safety inherent in the shutdown. Despite congressional exemptions to keep military and some other categories of employees on the job, there are risks in the present situation. Some result from the complexities of deciding precisely which employees are essential. Even when that exercise seems straightforward, it often is not.

For example, the Forest Service contingency plan for the shutdown, issued on September 20, said, “This plan assumes some Agency activities will continue that are essential to protect life and property. . ."

The first activity listed is “Fire Suppression including fire fighters and all necessary equipment costs . . .”

Sounds like an easy plan to carry out. But what seems a no brainer is not--a whole lot of difficult judgments are involved. They have to do with the nature of the fire suppression organization.

The firefighting organization is a combination of a small number of full-time professionals, a larger number of Forest Service people who have other full-time jobs and who work on fire problems only as needed, and an even larger number of contractors and part-time employees. Exactly who is essential can be a bit mysterious.

Consider this possibility. A relatively new full-time employee, let’s call her Josephine, works at a low-level purchasing job in a small unit. Prioritizing the unit’s work indicates the best course of action is to furlough Josephine as “nonessential.” Remaining employees with more experience could carry out the most important unit activities.

However, Josephine has completed some special procurement training and done satisfactory work when called to help handle logistics on a major forest fire. As a qualified fire support person, she could be called away from her normal job for fire duty, but it is impossible to predict when that might happen, or if it might happen over a period of weeks or months, or possibly even years.

Is Josephine “nonessential” because of her primary job, or “essential” because of fire assignments that may, or may not, materialize? How that seemingly small decision is made could be a factor in putting lives or property at risk.

In another agency, reports of shutdown effects say “routine food inspections have been suspended.” Sounds somewhat innocent, but think about it. Do you want chances taken with the quality of the food you eat? What god-like person decides which food inspections are routine, and which are “essential"?

And yesterday, James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, told a Senate committee that he could not guarantee our national safety because 70 percent of our intelligence community has been furloughed. Clapper pointed out that spies who are poorly paid, or paid not at all, tend to switch sides in the world of espionage. Imagine that. Apparently the Tea Party crowd in Congress could not.

The federal government shutdown is shaping up to be much more than a mess or a debacle. It’s looking a lot like a full-blown disaster.

Keep Your Seats, Senators

Our pottymouth speaker speaks

John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, hit a new rhetorical low this week when he told Senators to “get off their ass” and produce legislation to avoid cutting some $85 billion from the remainder of this year’s federal expenditures. We presume the 100 Senators were not sitting on a donkey and also do not have a collective behind. However, let us hope no one awards Boehner an “F” for bad grammar.  He might use it with a few other letters to plummet deeper into the depths of coarse discourse, something he has done before.

Seldom does the geezer find common ground with the Tea Party crowd in Congress, but this time we are the strangest of bedfellows. The conservative Republicans in the House and I both want the Senators to keep their backsides firmly rooted in their chairs and do nothing. Letting “sequestration” take effect on Friday could be managed as a good step forward in what has become a tiresome, interminable budget battle in Washington.

The arch-conservative Representatives have been busily trying to convince us that serious sequestration consequences (they think cutting defense spending would be catastrophic) should be blamed on President Obama. It is true that the Administration conceived the sequestration plan. The Tea Partiers are correct about that. Their problem is that the American people don’t believe them. According to many polls, a majority will blame sequestration problems squarely on the Republicans.

Mr. Obama has been just as busily touring the country and issuing state-by-state assessments proclaiming that cutting up to 13 percent in defense spending and 9 percent in other discretionary spending areas will have horrific consequences. The centerpiece of the presidential arguments is that 750,000 jobs will disappear at a time when the economy is still struggling to right itself. That is a lot of hooey.

The cuts in defense can be achieved by temporarily reducing the number of hours civilian employees work this year. That will be unpleasant for the workers, of course, but their jobs would not be eliminated. Managers would have seven months to make useful economies and return the employees to full-time status.  That should not be difficult considering the bloated condition of defense accounts, which Congress has been inflating almost without question for more than a decade.

Cuts in the other programs would cause some undesirable job losses and reductions in essential services, but Social Security and Medicaid would not be affected at all and only modest cuts would occur in Medicare reimbursements to healthcare providers. In a few cases, states can be expected to cover some of the federal shortfall should sequestration take place.

The President should call Boehner’s bluff. Let the cuts take place, and then have separate pieces of legislation quickly introduced to restore funding to all accounts that truly need it, but do not include defense. Republicans and Democrats in both houses then could let all of us see their true colors as they vote each federal service up or down.

The federal debt and budget deficit are serious matters, all the foggy mutterings of economists about percentages of domestic product and similar theoretical guidelines aside. The simple truth is that far too much of our tax revenue is going to pay interest on a gigantic debt, and the situation is getting worse by the day. That interest money should be used for things that benefit our society, not just investors who find U.S. bonds the safest place in the world to park their excess cash. It is important to get on with spending reductions, appropriate tax increases, and closing tax loopholes to set our financial house in order.

Although Medicare spending is far from sustainable and needs to be dealt with, defense is the biggest money sink in the federal budget right now. In recent years, it has been impossible to rein in defense budgets. That well known “military-industrial complex” simply has too much power with Congress, and until now, has had full support from administrations.  Sequestration is the best opportunity that may come along in many years to take a real whack out of unnecessary defense spending.

Hold firm, Senators. Do what you do best—nothing. Sequestration can be turned into a positive thing for our nation.