First of all, we should note that the White House’s story kept evolving as we reported last week’s column. It’s almost as if the president’s aides had to scramble to come up with reasons why the president could be correct, without actually knowing the facts....AND: A round-up of sequester fact-checking.
March 6, 2013
"Four Pinocchios for White House claim on Capitol janitors' overtime."
Glenn Kessler at WaPo.
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If you look at nearly all of Obama's rhetoric you could apply four pinnochios to it.
In other words, overtime amounts to only pittance of the overall pay — about $6.50 a week on top of wages of $1,000 a week. That’s much different from Carney’s claim of having to “depend on that overtime to make ends meet.”
Wow, janitors lost 6.50 a week. It's the end of the world as we know it!
Wow, janitors lost 6.50 a week. It's the end of the world as we know it!
Wow, WH janitors MAKE $1,000 a week in wages! So total compensation package = $75k plus annual? Really, White House, please keep giving us more reasons to continue cutting ...
The fact that anyone believed a minuscule 2% cut in spending was going to usher in some kind of economic apocalypse just goes to show the stupidity of people. Then again, a majority of the electorate chose this idiot for an encore so its not surprising.
1. This is not a fact based administration.
2. They don't care, because the press as a whole doesn't either
“The sequester cuts amount to two to three percent of the budget”
—various Republicans and an ad by Public Notice
FactChecker rating: Two Pinocchios, published Feb. 26
FactCheck.Org: “Misleading,” published March 5
Well of course that's misleading. For it to amount to some percentage of the budget, there would need to be a budget.
Meanwhile, the White House has a staff of 3 caligraphers whose combined salary is close to $300,000. Oh the austerity!
Calypso Facto wrote:
Wow, WH janitors MAKE $1,000 a week in wages!
I swear! 50,000 dollars a year (plus benefits) for janitor work?!?
Are these executive janitors?
The federal government is earning more tax revenue now “than any other time.”
—Rep. Kevin McCarthy(R-Calif.)
PolitiFact rating: Mostly False, published Feb. 28
Ohhh, he didn't put a waffle in there, that's why they picked that one.
From the CBO report:
Revenues
Federal revenues will increase by roughly 25 percent between 2013 and 2015 under current law, CBO projects. That increase is expected to result from a rise in income because of the growing economy, from policy changes that are scheduled to take effect during that period, and from policy changes that have already taken effect but whose full impact on revenues will not be felt until after this year (such as the recent increase in tax rates on income above certain thresholds).
As a result of those factors, revenues are projected to grow from 15.8 percent of GDP in 2012 to 19.1 percent of GDP in 2015—compared with an average of 17.9 percent of GDP over the past 40 years. Under current law, revenues will remain at roughly 19 percent of GDP from 2015 through 2023, CBO estimates.
Has our GDP been higher? Maybe he is right after all?
I just watched SNL's opening from Saturday, LOLOLOLOL
Come on people - Uncle Sam has to pay janitors and caligraphers such high salaries because it is so expensive to live in the Imperial City.
There's more truth in AA's embedded quote than I want to believe. The Man and the Meme must be preserved at all cost. The truth, the country ..... meh. Just collateral damage.
HEres's a link to the average salary of janitorial supervisors.
http://www.indeed.com/salary/Janitorial-Supervisor.html
It's 24,000 dollars. Meaning, these janitors are earning more than double what the person who is supervising them normally gets paid (and thats not including benefits). I wonder what the janitorial supervisor is getting paid.
Seven figures?
If the sequester hits, “hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.”
—Obama
PolitiFact rating: Half True, published Feb. 21
Hospitals are closing?
Walgreens? Rite Aid? CVS? Grocery stores?
They all give flu shots in my area.
18-19% is where it needs to be.
Cut regs, cut basket weaving programs, tinker w/SS, means-test and it might not be that bad.
If they are REALLY doing all the stupid things they told us they would do--shutting down ambulance service and care to the elderly, for example--wouldn't that be grounds for impeachment when there is so much fat out there? If someone dies, is it murder or negligent homicide, depraved indifference? Can you get away with the consequences of doing drastic things just to make a political point when a 10-year-old would know a better way? A real person skips the Cheetos, not the heart medicine.
Obama and his minions are saving money by closing down the White House tours for street people. But Wednesday night parties will continue. These people are so transparent in their petty MO, it is disgusting.
Shutting down care to the elderly is just a trial run for Obamacare. We're already being categorized into well, sick, etc.
janitors working in goverment get paid about 13.00 dollars an hour on average. If they work a 40 hour week they make 520 a week. And if they work 52 weeks a year they earn 27,000 (on average).
How much overtime are these janitors getting?
Where is Michelle headed for spring break?
How are they losing $6.50 a week, the furlough, so they're not working 40 hours?
The administration also shut down White House tours yesterday. Because of the sequestration. Yeah, right.
This administration is such a bunch of dildos.
Via Powerline:
The Washington Times has obtained an email from an email from Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown saying he asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to minimize the impact. The email indicates he was told not to do anything that would lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of. Times reporter Stephen Dinan quotes Brown’s message:
“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,” Mr. Brown, in the internal email, said his superiors told him..."
50k for janitorial work, lol that's my university tuition right there.
I second what jr565 said, are these executive janitors?
Seems like the WaPo is turning a more critical eye to Obummer and his merry band. I bet the WH is regretting threatening Woodward now. Never take sides against the family, Barry!
'jr565' said, "50,000 dollars a year (plus benefits) for janitor work?!?
Are these executive janitors?"
According to the article, they're cleaning technicians
In any case, when the Fed finally succeeds in exploding the money supply, we'll all make ten times what we used to.
Ohhh, is history being made today?
Via Insty:
USA TODAY: “Parts of official Washington are transfixed by Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination as CIA director.” Judging by Twitter, so are a lot of other people. And it’s now gone bipartisan with Democrat Ron Wyden joining Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, et al.
@Seeing Red,
The Washington Times has obtained an email from an email from Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown saying he asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to minimize the impact. The email indicates he was told not to do anything that would lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of.
This isn't going to work for the Administration. The management layers of the various agencies aren't going to reduce services that their lives can be made a daily hell in order that the Administration can prove a point. I mean, jeez, what the fuck is in it for them?
And, for each & every request to make the cuts painful that comes down from the Admin., the same words are being said by every civil servant: "Put it in writing." Where does that leave the administration?
It’s almost as if the president’s aides had to scramble to come up with reasons why the president could be correct, without actually knowing the facts
Since this is normally the media's function it seems like a step in the right direction.
Wait - I thought today was DC snow day, why is Congress in session?
Darrell said...
If they are REALLY doing all the stupid things they told us they would do--shutting down ambulance service and care to the elderly, for example--wouldn't that be grounds for impeachment when there is so much fat out there?
In order to punish us for daring to reduce the rate of increase in government spending (they're still spending more than last year) by 2.3%, Obama and company will cut as much meat and bone to spare the fat. They want the "cuts" to hurt so no one will ever want to reduce the rate of growth in spending again. So, the 3rd Deputy Assistant Undersecretary for Diversity jobs will be safe. No one would miss them if those jobs went away.
In the meantime, with the expiration of the reduction in payroll tax rates, we're all having to live with a real 2% reduction in our income. We've got to adjust to that but expecting the federal government to operate with a 2.3% lower increase then they want is causing doomsday? Bullshit.
The best sequester-induced spending cut yet has to be shutting down the White House tours. Just how much do WH tour guides make??
The administration is collapsing into self-parody.
2 Pinocchios for it's 2.5% of the budget, instead of 2.5% of the discretionary budget.
It is 2.5% of the budget. Who cares if it comes out of the discretionary part of the budget or not?
Chip S, i believe they cancelled the WH tours because of the spending cuts.
$50k per year plus benefits? Yikes.
There will be furloughs, though.
The first one will be the poor sucker who told the truth about the matter. Bye-bye!
What spending cuts? There are NO spending cuts. If the spending goes UP, which it is, there by definition cannot be a cut.
How many Pinocchios in a Pulitzer?
Or a Nobel?
"i believe they cancelled the WH tours because of the spending cuts."
A Texas congressmen put an amendment in the House continuing resolution bill that would prevent any federal funds to be used to transport the president to or from a golf course until WH tours resume.
"...the White House’s story kept evolving...
They're working hard to get their Pinocchio average down from four to three.
This man's whole presidency has been four pinocchios. I've never seen a public figure who is less constrained by the truth.
Well gee, I guess they missed one of the big ones:
Lefty pundits: Bob Woodward, senile.
--Four Pinocchios, 'Grossly misleading', 'Pants on Fire'.
What was so striking was the idea -- reflected in the Wapo's story -- that cutting back overtime was something severe or extreme.
No, DC folks, that's what normal people do to trim a budget.
In my last parish, money was tight. So this is something we did. We didn't have a lot of maintenance staff. And our maintenance guys also had to move the snow in winter. With two churches and schools and rectories, there were a lot of sidewalks and steps to clear.
Two years ago, we got slammed with snow. But no overtime. A lot of other maintenance got deferred.
In the real world, that's what you do.
Mr. President, that's called normal.
Only in pampered DC, is that a 'crisis.'
(I shudder to think of the reaction if I'd gotten up in the pulpit to beg for more contributions so our guys could get overtime pay!)
Obama makes Lillian Hellman look like Joe Friday.
$1000 a week? Where did I go wrong?
On a lot of these claims, they depend on those "low information" voters to be too stupid to know fire departments and teachers are local, not Federal, responsibilities.
Sim said...
Chip S, i believe they cancelled the WH tours because of the spending cuts.
In 1877, they forgot to pay the Army.
Maxine Waters said that 170 million jobs would be lost because of the sequester? I suspect she confused the number of jobs that might be lost with the total number of jobs in the US.
What did we do to deserve her?
Meanwhile, why the hell do we want people on hourly wages routinely working overtime? Private employers do everything they can to avoid this. Public employees apparently count on it.
Obama makes Milli Vanilli look like the Beatles.
Obama makes Bernie Madoff look like George Bailey.
Obama makes Bill Clinton look like Pope Benedict.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
Maxine Waters said that 170 million jobs would be lost because of the sequester? I suspect she confused the number of jobs that might be lost with the total number of jobs in the US.
What did we do to deserve her?
You'd be surprised to hear how many Southerners say we cheated back in the 60s.
1860s, that is.
Maxine Waters said that 170 million jobs would be lost because of the sequester? I suspect she confused the number of jobs that might be lost with the total number of jobs in the US.
Are you sure she wasn't talking about the number of jobs that would be lost under Obama's recovery plan?
ABC's World News Tonight mocked the closing of White House tours due to the sequester. They showed the Obama claim that they couldn't keep the tours when the secret service was cut a few $million out of roughly $160 million budget. They then calculated that the tours cost $18,000/day in secret service costs and were smirking at the joke of a excuse.
Are you sure she wasn't talking about the number of jobs that would be lost under Obama's recovery plan?
Yeah, first we'd have to add 30% more jobs then shitcan everyone. I do believe that Obama can do that.
Yes he can.
TWO separate Agencies to manage Janitor Services in ONE building?
I realize one side needs more kybo tape - but what else is different?
It's just straws in the wind, but in our local (3X per week) paper, and in the "big city" (Raleigh) paper, I'm seeing editorial cartoons mocking Obama's disaster-mongering over the sequester. Could this be his "bridge too far"?
For clarification: both papers are reliably liberal.
It's just straws in the wind, but in our local (3X per week) paper, and in the "big city" (Raleigh) paper, I'm seeing editorial cartoons mocking Obama's disaster-mongering over the sequester. Could this be his "bridge too far"?
This is early March in an odd-numbered year. Check back closer to election time; they'll be parroting the talking points like an Althouse troll.
Maxine Waters said that 170 million jobs would be lost...
I think she meant 1 job would be lost per year, for 170 million years.
Heh.
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