Hart: Petulant President: Has anybody noticed the sequester

Congratulations to all sequester survivors. I know it was tough getting through the 2.2 percent cut in growth of "non-essential" government "services," even with one fake Washington snow day thrown in last week.

Many citizens did not understand sequestration. Forty-seven percent of Americans thought it meant the removal of sequins from Ryan Seacrest's rhinestone jacket.

Try as they might, Obama and his zombies in the media were unable to make good on their threats to inflict as much pain as they could with the sequester he created.

To be fair, sequestration was bipartisan. (The two wasteful wars we are in also had overwhelming "bipartisan" support.) Now each party claims it was the other side's idea, and a bad idea at that. The word "bipartisan" means an extreme sleight of hand is being perpetrated on citizens by both parties. Be eternally fearful when politicians all agree on something.

Obama, who tries to glom onto the Clinton aura when it benefits him, did try to reach out to some in the GOP last week when he could not get his way. He was pushed to the precipice of actual pleasantness. He wants to inflict pain on the country by making these minimal cuts in growth of government seem severe.

In one act of petulance, Obama cut the $74,000 weekly cost of White Hours tours for kids during Spring Break. Yet the trip Obama took to Florida to play golf with Tiger Woods cost $1 million. Obama has three White House calligraphers making $277,000 in combined salaries.

All this decadent spending comes from a president who assails the "greed of the rich" in America at a $50,000-a-plate campaign fund-raiser.

Instead of sitting down with Republicans in good faith to hammer out a deal, Obama goes into campaign mode. Since taking office, he has spent one out of every 10 days visiting colleges. He has much in common with college students: In his fifth year of eight, he has run up more debt than he can pay and has created no job prospects.

Democrats have the worse argument on spending. Is it moral to spend money we do not have (42 percent of which we have to borrow) on growing a government we do not want, that burdens our kids with more than $16 trillion in debt? Which is more selfish, continuing to spend on ourselves or cutting spending so we do not go broke and can provide basic services in the future?

In the most naked power grabs by Democrats since Al Gore's last hotel room massage, the insatiable Obama tried to usurp the House's Constitutional right to raise the debt limit while Harry Reid tried to limit the right of Senators like Rand Paul to filibuster.

Obama took his campaign message of blaming Republicans to West Virginia. When a Washington politician is in West Virginia, it is either an election year or his plane crashed. One political party complaining about the other is like a burglar complaining about a pickpocket.

What Obama and big spending Democrats do not want you to realize is that we can withstand this budget "cut" and a whole lot more. We have awakened to their corrupt stewardship and incompetent management of our money. We can only hope that this is just the beginning. I think we have them on the run.

Ron Hart is a syndicated op-ed humorist, award-winning author and TV/radio commentator. Email Ron@RonaldHart.com or visit www.RonaldHart.com

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