Sequestration and Saturnalia

The budget sequestration cuts that have taken effect over the weekend aren't likely to be felt for a while, so no one in Washington is in a hurry to do anything about them. For the ideological bases in each party, it's a big win - progressives in the Democratic Party get the defense cuts they've always wanted, while Tea Party Republicans get to say to their constituents back home that they cut spending - though, while they might be enough to cause pain, cuts totaling $85 billion is a drop in the bucket.

And what kind of pain will these across-the-board cuts cause? No one seems to know. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's warnings of cuts to air traffic control have been dismissed as exaggerations, while Education Secretary Arne Duncan's warnings have just been flat-out wrong; he thought that some teachers in West Virginia had been laid off as a result of the sequestration. They weren't. Oh, they were laid off, all right, but not as a result of the sequestration. Anyway, a lot federal, state and local entiteis, as well as businesses, have seem this coming, so they've been preparing. We'll see how well-prepared they are.

Warren Buffett predicted recently that President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would eventually work out a deal through fits and starts, and it would have to include additional revenues as well as more spending cuts. Fits and starts. Well, a deal might be worked out sooner and more quickly than that. Because a big winter storm - which the Weather Channel is calling Saturn - is likely to dump rings of snow around Washington, D.C. in the middle of this week, possibly snowing in members of Congress and White House staffers as well as the President. With about six inches of snow on the ground in D.C. - which has about the same effect in our nation's capital as a foot or more of snow would have on New York - the best thing for everyone in Washington to do would be to get some pizzas or Chinese food and hammer out that deal. They'll have nothing else to do.

Oh yeah, the storm's impact on the New York area. After assurances that we Tri-Staters would be spared the worst of it, it's now possible that New Jersey could get five inches of snow out of this storm on Wednesday. Wind is also a possibility. I guess this is March coming in like a lion. I'm crossing my fingers that we get through this one unscathed, because after Sandy, I don't think I can take another "historic" storm so soon. The only lion's roar I want to hear is the one at the start of an old MGM movie.

And as for the snow, we'll see how well-prepared we all are for that.