Paul Abrams: Sequester Cuts Should Hit Tea Party Districts Hardest

Over at The Huffington Post, Paul Abrams is suggesting a novel concept that, in theory, should make everyone happy. If the Tea Party and the House Republicans continue to hold a gun to America's collective head and refuses to work with President Obama to stop the sequester cuts from happening, then focus those cuts to government overwhelmingly in Tea Party centric districts where voters supposedly don't like government, anyway:

[T]here are some cuts that could be overweighted in Tea Party-controlled districts, freeing that money up to be spent in other districts to keep the program whole. For example, more TSA personnel could be furloughed in Texas (Dallas, Houston), Arizona (Phoenix), Alabama, and fewer or none in Chicago, Seattle, Boston, New York, so that residents of the former states would face longer security lines and waiting times. 

Because the Tea Party types consider government spending to be evil, corrupting, dependency-producing and tyrannical, they should greet their disproportionate reduction with dancing and flowers. It will constitute the first real success of the "freedom agenda."The money saved by an agency in one congressional district could be shifted in the same agency to prevent cuts in other districts. 

Everyone should be happy -- the congressional districts represented by those such as Louie Gohmert, Paul Broun, Michele Bachmann and upwards of 80 others will be, as we say in Texas, happier than a two peckered dog that the government is not so much in their lives, while the other districts will be pleased to use that unspent money to moderate or negate the impact of those cuts. We ought also to include the districts of Speaker Boehner, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy.

Of course, the people in the Tea Party would never be happy with this compromise because, when it comes down to it, they like government just as much as anyone else when it benefits them. From a speech Obama gave in 2009:

"I have to say, the reason [a public option] has been controversial is a lot of people have heard this phrase 'socialized medicine' and they say, 'We don't want government-run health care; we don't want a Canadian-style plan,'" Obama said. "Nobody is talking about that. 

We're saying, let's give you a choice. You can choose the private marketplace, or this other approach. 

"And I got a letter the other day from a woman; she said, 'I don't want government-run health care, I don't want socialized medicine, and don't touch my Medicare.' And I wanted to say, well, I mean, that's what Medicare is, is it's a government-run health care plan that people are very happy with. But I think that we've been so accustomed to hearing those phrases that sometimes we can't sort out the myth from the reality."

The only problem they have with government is that it's currently run by someone that they've decided they will hate and fear monger over no matter what he does. Despite the fact that President George W. Bush destroyed a Clinton surplus and spent trillions on wars, tax cuts, and a healthcare plan (prescription drug benefits), these people didn't have the epiphany that they didn't like government or government spending until early 2009, immediately after Barack Obama was inaugurated.

So the idea that they would actually accept this idea is, of course, absurd. Which is fine with me, because, despite the bad and ignorant voting habits present in my state, I don't really want Mississippians to experience the impact of the policies they keep voting into office.

By the way, if you're wondering what the sequester cuts will mean for you and your life, check out this article.