So the White House is closing its doors to the public today. Budget cuts related to the sequester are the blame.
The WH tours are closed after a decision by the Secret Service that it could not afford to maintain security. The savings for shuttering the WH comes to a measly $2m over the next seven months. I’m thinking this is a bullshit move by Obama; he’s trying to get the public hostile toward Republicans. If the visitors to D.C. who are disappointed in not being able to visit the WH actually knew the facts, they would be mad at Obama, not the Republicans.
The Secret Service budget for 2013 is $1.67b. The $2m savings from closing the WH comes to 0.12% of the budget for the Secret Service, it’s equal to 0.00005% of total spending. Closing the WH is a dumb way to save some money. Some other places where the $2m could have been absorbed:
Information Technology Portfolio – $200m
Transformation Initiative – $50m
Oregon and California Grant Lands – $113m
Payments to States in Lieu of Coal Fee Receipts – $128m
Lower Colorado River Basin Development Fund – $254m
Upper Colorado River Basin Fund – $92m
Surveys, Investigations, and Research - $1,075m
Operation of the National Park System – $3,000m
Mineral Leasing and Associated Payments – $2,144m
Salaries and Expenses, United States Attorneys – $1,972m
Capital and Debt Service Grants to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation – $958m
Grants for Specified Energy Property in Lieu of Tax Credits, Recovery Act – $3,671m
Foreign Military Financing Program – $6,344m
Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund – $850m
Assistance for Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia – $631m
Commodity Futures Trading Commission - $206m
Corporation for Public Broadcasting - $445m
Tennessee Valley Authority Fund – $445m
If you don’t find anything on that list (there are thousands of other line items to choose from) consider saving the money to keep the WH open from these big accounts:
Military Procurement – $100B (50,000 Xs the cost of keeping the WH open)
Military R&D – $87B (43,500 Xs the cost of keeping the WH open)
The problem with the sequester is that it is a meataxe approach to cutting. It’s a dumb way to go about the process. The Secret Service is facing cut backs, it will be forced to pare back $84m of expenses. But to have those cuts centered around the public access to the White House is just for show.
All of D.C. is going to look dumb before this is over. Obama might get the award for deliberately mismanaging the process. Let’s hope so.
White House is going for optics here. All the cuts announced and discussed are for maximum head-line effect. Not discussed are common sense ways cuts could be made in the name of efficiency and rationalization of resources.
Really, this is standard issue MO for this kind of stuff. Parents do it to kids, CEO’s do it to companies, your local government does it whenever they want to raise taxes….
How many times have to seen the “if we don’t raise taxes, we’ll have to lay off teachers!!!111?” These are always played for headlines and scare tactics because parents care about teachers. If the headlines screamed “if we don’t raise taxes, we’ll have to lay off a bunch of administrative people, half of whom are already irrelevant.” Doesn’t get the same impact at all.
This is just how the game is played. Eventually, the cuts will settle in the correct areas (such as the ones Bruce outlines) but only after a massive effort to derail them has been made.
Bruce,
Saw your post on ZH about M2 – I’m with you:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fredgraph.png?g=goA
(YoY M2 growth – YoY GDP NSA growth)
Is the $2 million net of ticket sales?
Internal Government Email: Make Sequester Cuts As Painful As Possible http://shar.es/j9j94
Just make a virtual tour online and problem solved. We don’t need tours of the White House.
Back in the early 1990s, I worked for the feds. We were very sensitive to talk in Washington about cutting budgets, and we all knew about a ploy called the Washington Monument. “Well, senator, if our budget gets cut that would mean we’d have to shut down the Washington Monument. And, we won’t be able to get Yellowstone Park ready for tourist next summer.” Wring your hands and be downcast while speaking and hope the ploy slows down the cutting till interest in it fads away with help from the always higher budgets politicians to sabotage and kill budget control measures.
Real estate values were apprazied lower in my county in nc for 2012.Officials raised tax rate then to equal the loss in revenue.No cutbacks here.Gov’t made sure they got theirs.This is why iv said for 10 years real estate is a bad investment but OK if you live there.Just OK.You watch.Gov’t is now left with the only thing left to extract taxes from,real estate,since sales taxes for goods and services are slowing.Relavent to closing WH?Sure.Just the usual Gov’t caring for only themselves while giving lip service to the public.Obama is slick.Only folks going to see WH are folks on the dole who can;t get jobs,and thats their voting base.I can see it now.Mid term elections.Republicans cause closing of WH says democrats.Say it enough and eventually everyone believes it.
Bruce, if I ran the Secret Service, I’d be doing everything I could to improve the image of the Service. Remember the prostitute scandal embarrassment on the S. America trip. The Service used to have pride.
Bruce,
This is a wonderful thing, closing the White House. I am sure this will result in a, “Who Gives A S*#t”, blow back scenario.
How about Michelle take one less vacation?
This is a topic that’s close to my heart… Many thanks! Exactly where are your contact details though?