Big Sis slightly exagerates on sequester

[Forever_frost]

Ms Napolitano said today that major airports were seeing lines "150 to 200 per cent as long as we would normally expect" as result of the federal spending cuts that went into force on Friday.

"We're already seeing the effects at some of the ports of entry, the big airports, for example. Some of them had very long lines this weekend," she told a breakfast event organised by Politico.

When pressed for specifics she cited Chicago's O'Hare, Atlanta's Hartfield-Jackson and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), adding: "I don't mean to scare, I mean to inform."

However, when contacted by The Daily Telegraph, spokespeople for both O'Hare and LAX, as well as representatives from the travel industry, denied that airports had been hit by delays.

"We haven't had any slowdowns at all," said Marshall Lowe, a spokesman for LAX. Mr Lowe said that he had been on duty over the weekend and received no reports of unusual security delays.

DeAllous Smith, a spokesman for Hartfield-Jackson, said: "There have been no abnormally long lines at the security checkpoint nor unusual aircraft delays at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as a result of sequestration."

Their comments were echoed by Karen Pride, the director of media relations at Chicago Department of Aviation, who described operations at O'Hare as "normal" with "no unusual delays or cancellations".

When asked specifically about the cabinet secretary's claims, Ms Pride said: "I'm not aware of that. I've had no reports of that."

The Obama administration has been repeatedly accused of exaggerating the impact of the $85 billion in cuts as it seeks to pressure Republicans in Congress into replacing them with a mixture of spending reductions and tax rises.

Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, was widely criticised last month for saying that teachers were already being laid off because of the cuts, a claim without evidence. The Washington Post's Fact Checker blog awarded the claim four Pinocchios - its highest rating for falsehood.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately return a request for comment on Ms Napolitano's claim.

Luis Casanova, a regional spokesman for the Transport Security Administration (TSA), said "we've been asked not to comment on the subject [of sequestration]" and referred calls to DHS.

A statement released Friday by the TSA said travelers "will likely not see immediate impacts at airport security checkpoints" but that delays would increase over time.

Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for Airlines for America, the airline industry's trade group, also contradicted Ms Napolitano's claim. "We're not seeing any impact at the moment," Ms Medina said. "Our biggest problem this week is going to be weather rather than the sequester."

Ms Medina said she would not "speculate" on Ms Napolitano's remarks but said: "I can only tell you what we've heard from our members, which is they have not seen any abnormal delays."

Dorian Paul of Corniche Travel, a Los Angeles-based travel company, said he had received no reports of security delays at LAX or across the country.

"I haven't heard of anything like that at all," Mr Paul said. "We're on a mailing list for LAX that tells us whether there are any security delays and we have meet-and-greet people at the airport who tell us if there are any delays and at the moment we haven't heard anything."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9908416/Airports-contradict-Janet-Napolitanos-sequester-claim.html

[Big A]

I flew out of LAX's sister airport Johh Wayne this past Thursday, and there wasn't any wait at all. There was a bigger line flying out of Sacramento International a few days before, but it wasn't any longer than normal.

I'm heading to Tampa in the morning, I guess I'll get there an extra hour early just to be safe.

[8mpg]

Amazing how we have yet to feel anything from the sequester other than our worthless president letting criminals out of jail prematurely

[Broncojohnny]

Think about it, their biggest fear is that we cut the government budget and nothing happens. That situation would confirm what we all know, the government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

[racrguy]

Think about it, their biggest fear is that we cut the government budget and nothing happens. That situation would confirm what we all know, the government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Smart people didn't need a confirmation. But hey, gotta keep that big government train running, lest it jump the fucking tracks.

[Woods Racing Transmission]

[Vertnut]

I'm glad Egypt got that fat $250 million welfare check we owed them. Ass-clowns...

[Forever_frost]

Obama sent out a message to federal departments saying that they shouldn't engage in any cuts that would go against the narrative.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/05/white-house-sequester-email-you-need-to-make-sure-you-are-not-contradicting-what-we-said-the-impact-would-be/

If any observers thought the White House was bluffing in its dire, even sadistic predictions about the outcome of the sequester, they may be disappointed. A new internal email discovered by the Washington Times suggests that, even if the negative effects of the budget cuts known as “sequestration” can be blunted, the White House has precisely no interest in doing so, most likely because it would undermine their bargaining position with Congress.

The Washington Times reports:

In the email sent Monday by Charles Brown, an official with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Brown asked “if there was any latitude” in how to spread the sequester cuts across the region to lessen the impacts on fish inspections.

He said he was discouraged by officials in Washington, who gave him this reply: “We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that ‘APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be.”

“This email confirms what many Americans have suspected: The Obama administration is doing everything they can to make sure their worst predictions come true and to maximize the pain of the Sequester cuts for political gain,” said Rep. Tim Griffin, Arkansas Republican.[...]

The administration earlier had warned that supplies of beef, pork and poultry could drop this year because slaughterhouse inspectors will have to be furloughed, and under federal law meat can’t be processed without inspectors present.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has, of course, studiously denied the idea that the administration is sacrificing its flexibility in order to make its dire predictions about the outcome of the sequester self-fulfilling prophecies. Nevertheless, the email raises some questions about just how much that flexibility is being applied, even if the person behind it might just be a disgruntled lower level official.

Allies of the administration have been pushing less than likely estimates of the sequester’s impact since before the policy took effect. Most notably, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) predicted that the sequester would cost 170 million jobs, a statistic notable for its mathematical impossibility.