According to Webster: se·ques·tra·tion, (in context) 1. The act of sequestering; segregation. 2.a. Seizure of property. b. A writ authorizing seizure of property.
The following “literary component” has been (sequestered,) and/or (seized) from Barack Obama.com.
Sequestration and national security: What you need to know.
When you’re faced with someone who misrepresents the truth, you can find all the facts you need right here,…
(Sidebar); ..meaning – (Barack Obama dot com). 🙂
Continuing…
..along with ways to share the message with whoever needs to hear it.
Mitt Romney and Republicans are attempting to mislead Americans by attacking President Obama for ensuring “massive defense cuts.” They’re basing this false attack on a “sequestration” passed by Congress last August—a policy that is supposed to force Congress to reach a deal to reduce the deficit. Here is what you need to know about the sequester and where each candidate stands on preventing the cuts:
What is sequestration?
If Congress cannot reach a deal to reduce the deficit by the end of the year, a “sequester” will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts evenly split between defense and non-defense spending. Democrats and Republicans in Congress created this mechanism in order to pressure its members to reach a compromise on deficit-reduction. The potential defense cuts, which passed Congress with a majority of Republican support in both the House and the Senate, will only go into effect if Congress cannot agree on a deficit deal.
Why is this plan in place?
After House Republicans refused to support President Obama’s deficit-reduction proposal—a compromise that could have cut the deficit by $4 trillion over ten years—Congress had to find a way to address our country’s rising levels of debt from two wars, the Bush tax cuts, and the effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression. To reach a long-term deal, Democrats and Republicans in Congress reached an agreement with President Obama: $1 trillion in spending cuts and a pledge to reduce the deficit by an additional $1 trillion. Congress established the threat of sequestration as an enforcement mechanism: the automatic and indiscriminate spending cuts were designed to be so damaging that Congress would have no choice but to reach a deficit-reduction deal in order to prevent their implementation.
What are the consequences of the sequester for national security?
Congressional Republicans are risking serious consequences in order to launch a political attack. President Obama understands that the effects of such massive spending cuts would undermine our national security. The reductions would indiscriminately slash the Pentagon’s funding by nearly 20% over the next decade, threatening to undermine America’s military. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta noted that sequestration would drastically shrink the military and diminish its ability to keep us safe.
What is President Obama’s plan to avoid these cuts?
President Obama made it very clear that Congress “can and must act to avoid the sweeping impacts of the sequester” and provided several blueprints for balanced deficit reduction to avoid these cuts. His deficit reduction package, for example, offered more than $4 trillion in deficit reduction while making sure we continue to invest in education, job creation, and long-term economic growth. The package “would achieve more than enough deficit reduction to avoid the sequester,” and would provide our military the support they need to keep America safe. Fiscal commission co-chairs Erksine Bowles and Alan Simpson both called the President’s plan “a balanced, comprehensive approach to deficit reduction.” But Republican leaders “walked away from negotiations” because they refused to accept any revenue increases.
Does Mitt Romney have a plan that would prevent these cuts?
No. Romney has refused to support any proposal that would include additional government revenue, saying “I don’t believe that raising revenues is the right answer to balancing our budget.” He even backed Congressional Republicans who refused to raise revenue as part of a deal to avoid government default. Romney said that he didn’t want Congress to take any actions that might prevent these cuts before inauguration day in January 2013, even though the country faces looming defense cuts.
Why hasn’t Congress voted to pass a solution yet?
Republicans in Congress have apparently decided to stall legislation and “put off striking deals on major legislative issues” like deficit reduction in hopes that Romney wins the White House. Republican leader Rep. Jim Jordan even said that some Republicans were willing to see major fiscal decisions postponed until next year, because they are bullish about Mr. Romney winning.
In fact, with buy-in from the Romney campaign, Congressional Republicans have laid out month-long plans “in painstaking detail” that attack the President on defense cuts rather than attempting to find a solution.
As Politico notes, “the main goal” of these attacks is “to boost the party’s prospects on Election Day.” (Source, Barack Obama.com/truth team).
Again…
According to Webster: se·ques·tra·tion, (Pure and simple) The act of sequestering.
According to Webster: se·ques·ter, 1. To cause to withdraw into seclusion. 2. To remove or set apart; segregate. 3. Law. a. To take temporary possession of (property) as security against legal claims. b. To requisition and confiscate.
(Special Note): To remove or set apart; “segregate.”
According to Webster: seg·re·gate, To separate or isolate from others or from a main body or group.
(Sidebar) If my knowledge of American history is still valid, segregation is a word painfully understood by the black community. Accordingly, (at least in my humble opinion) if Barack Obama who fervently claims an affiliation with the black community is valid? First; “Why in the hell would he have agreed to entitle (name) a program that will devastate hundreds of thousands of American citizens, (sequestration,) and/or (segregation?) ..and second; Why in the hell would any American president jeopardize the security and safety of the American public, by eviscerating the military?
And then I recall the ending definition of sequester; …
(To requisition and confiscate.)
To “requisition and confiscate” ..pretty much says it all, (at least in my humble opinion) ..when (realistically) describing Barack Obama and his far left Marxist regime.
Barack Obama, an individual who (at least in my opinion) is nearing the capture of the Guinness book of World Records; (for misleading the American public and the world at large,) has just added to his compost pile of misleading information by explicating that the preceding article is related to the truth.
According to Webster: truth, Conformity to fact or actuality.
The following provided by; (newprioritiesnetwork.org).
Q. Which defense funds face sequestration cuts?
A. Sequestration under the 2011 Budget Control Act is slated to begin Jan. 2, 2013, with automatic budget cuts of about $55 billion each in the first year from defense and nondefense accounts. The sequestration cuts for defense apply to “total budgetary resources,” according to the law. These resources include funds appropriated for fiscal 2013 and previous years which are not yet committed to contracts. Nondefense funds from previous years are not subject to sequestration.
Q. Are any funds exempt?
A. The president has the authority to exempt personnel funds; most are for military pay. Personnel funds total $135.1 billion in President Barack Obama’s proposed non-war budget for fiscal 2013.
In November, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta wrote that Afghanistan war funding was exempt from sequester. The Pentagon reversed this position in a May 30 e-mail to Bloomberg Government. War funds no longer are exempt. The non-personnel portion of these funds totals $74.4 billion in the 2013 budget proposal.
Both “unobligated balances” from 2013 funds and previous years become exempt when they are committed to contracts, or obligated. Funds appropriated by Congress for fiscal 2013 and obligated prior to January 2, 2013, are “not subject to sequestration,” Defense spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Robbins said in a June 8 e-mail.
Q. What are unobligated balances?
A. Congress appropriates money for agency programs whose managers obligate some or all of the funds by hiring companies to do the work. Unobligated balances occur when funds appropriated in one fiscal year are not put on contract during that year. The unobligated military balance will be $83.5 billion by September 30, the last day of fiscal 2012, according to an Office of Management and Budget estimate.
Q. How much fiscal 2013 money is subject to cuts?
A. Fiscal 2013 funds subject to sequestration probably will include the non-personnel portion of the proposed 2013 base defense budget, or about $390.3 billion. The non-personnel portion of war funding, about $74.4 billion, would be added, bringing the total to $464.7 billion.
If the Pentagon spends its proposed fiscal 2013 budget evenly throughout the year, it probably will obligate about 25 percent, or $116.2 billion, by January 2, the second day of the second quarter of fiscal 2013. All obligated funds are considered exempt from sequestration, leaving about $348.5 billion in fiscal 2013 funds subject to sequestration.
Q. How will unobligated balances affect results?
A. Bloomberg Government estimates that about $432 billion will be subject to sequestration. That’s $83.5 billion of previous years’ unobligated balances plus $348.5 billion in fiscal 2013 funds available on January 2. (Source, New Priorities Network.org)
Last, ..but not least…
Republicans, ..and Obama budget chief trade blame for sequestration cuts…
Republican lawmakers and the Obama administration’s budget chief blamed one another for sequestration.
Wednesday as a top Pentagon official warned the automatic spending cuts would lead to an “unready, hollow” military force. The hearing of the House Armed Services Committee had the air of a partisan fistfight, with Obama budget chief Jeffrey Zients and GOP lawmakers frequently talking over each other.
Zients, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), chided Republicans for not proposing realistic solutions to stop the sequester cuts.
“The root cause of the problem here is the Republican refusal to acknowledge that the top 2 percent have to pay their fair share,” Zients said, repeating a common Democratic argument that higher taxes on the wealthy are needed to replace sequestration.
Republicans fired back that President Obama has done nothing to try and stop the cuts, and frequently interrupted Zients when he tried to say that Obama’s budget fixes sequestration, countering that no one in Congress voted for that proposal.
(Sidebar) At the risk of speaking out of turn, I would like to inject the fact that in the (three and a half years) that Barack Obama has been “President, ..and/or Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces,” ..the “Congress” ..”our” Congress, ..due to the Democratic dominated Senate, ..the Congress, ..has (not passed) a budget.
So what (blanking) budget is Barack Obama’s director of the (Office of Management and Budget) ..”Jeffrey Zients” talking about?
For those of you out there that may not be aware?
The U.S. and/or Federal Government of the United States, “our” government has a legal process in place for providing “us” ..as in fact, ..the “United States Government” belongs to the citizens of the United States.
It does not belong to Barack Obama, ..or any member, ..or any combination of members of the House or Senate.
A good read…
The Federal Budget Process-Resolution, Reconciliation, Authorizations, and Appropriations.
The Congressional Budget Process, as set out in the 1974 Budget Act, provides Congress with a procedure establishing appropriate spending levels and revenue sources for each year. The process is a method for coordinating decisions on the financial behavior of government as Congress prepares for the upcoming fiscal year.
The President initiates the annual budget process by presenting his budget proposal to Congress on or before the first Monday in February of each year.
Congress is free to adopt or reject any of the President’s recommendations in its concurrent resolution, which imposes overall constraints on revenues and spending and distributes the overall constraint on spending among groups of programs and activities.
The House and Senate Budget Committees formulate their respective budget resolutions and report them to the floor for a vote. After each chamber passes its resolution, Congress forms the Budget Resolution Conference Committee to reconcile differences between House and Senate versions. After deliberation, the conference committee reports the concurrent resolution on the budget to the floor and the House and Senate must each vote to approve the concurrent resolution without amendment.
The concurrent resolution is nonbinding, is not signed by the President, and does not have the force of law. After Congress has completed action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for a fiscal year, however, it is generally not in order to consider legislation that does not conform to the constraints on spending and revenue set out in the resolution.
The concurrent resolution may contain language instructing House and Senate Authorizing Committees to determine and recommend changes in existing law in order to achieve the spending reductions or revenue increases that the committee must attain in order to conform to spending caps outlined in the budget resolution.
The budget resolution leaves to the discretion of the committee the specific changes that must be made to accomplish such spending levels. In each chamber, committees make these specific changes and submit them as recommendations to the Budget Committee. These recommendations are combined into an omnibus reconciliation bill and reported by the Committee on the Budget for consideration by the entire chamber.
The House and Senate send their respective reconciliation bills to conference, where the Budget Reconciliation Conference Committee holds sub-conferences with authorizing committees and reports an Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Both chambers must pass the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act without amendment.
The President signs or may veto the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. The signed act becomes a law.
Under the rules of both houses, the appropriation for a program or agency may not be considered until its authorization has been considered. Authorizers stipulate terms and conditions under which specific government programs or agencies act, and authorize the enactment of appropriations.
After authorization, each of the thirteen appropriations subcommittees divide the funds allocated to it by the budget resolution among the agency programs within its jurisdiction. The House and Senate must vote on each of the 13 bills separately and send each to conference. Each appropriations bill is reported from conference for a vote in both chambers and must be approved or rejected without amendment.
The President signs into law or may veto each of the 13 Appropriation Conference Reports.
The budget process must be completed by September 30, the end of the fiscal year. In recent years, not all of the appropriations bills have been signed into law by that date, requiring Congress to enact supplemental appropriations to provide funding in addition to that previously designated for the current fiscal year. Similarly, Congress often passes rescission bills to revoke money appropriated (but not yet spent) for the current fiscal year.
Breaches of the budget resolution are remedied by sequestration, or, automatic cancellations of spending authority. Sequestration results when the statutory criteria for the deficit, discretionary spending, or the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) requirement has been exceeded. PAYGO requires that tax reductions or entitlement increases must be offset by tax increases or entitlement reductions.
(Please Note) This U.S. budget procedure is law, ..when the Congress of the United States cannot produce a yearly fiscal budget, ..they are breaking the law.
When the President of the United States, ..regardless of who the individual is, ..cannot, ..does not, ..or will not, ..sign the budget presented into law by September 30 of each year, he or she is breaking the law.
(A personal observation) if you live in America, whether you are a natural born citizen or a naturalized citizen, get to know the people that work for you in Washington DC.
Albeit more importantly, you need to get to know what the men and women in our government are actually authorized to do and what they are (not authorized) to do?
Our founding Fathers scribed nothing in the original U.S. Constitution about presidential signing statements.
Think about it, I’ll be back tomorrow
Crusader Rabbit…
Synapse Firing
pearlsofprofundity 