Did the President Cry Wolf? Redux

      The short answer is no. However, you'd never notice if all you do is listen to Bob Woodward's Beltway media quibble. As Huffingtonpost argues, all that the beltway media cares about is whether or not Obama "cried wolf" and whether or not the White House really had to close down the White House tours. There are people who have more to worry about from the sequester than this worry, however.

      The trouble with all the painstaking worrying about crying wolf is that it gets caught in some peripheral questions that are besides the point. It's possible the President and the Administration got to caught up in making vivid predictions and warnings so as to forewarn the public about how bad it will be. This enables some Very Serious People to get all worked up about the chaff, conveniently ignoring the wheat of the argument.

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-medis-new-crying-wolf-canard.html

     However, economists warn us that this will cost us about half a point in GDP and cost about three quarters of a million jobs.

     The argument about immediate pain is partly political as Obama and the Democrats hope that the public will lean on the GOP to end the sequester and obviously the quicker there is widely felt pain the quicker this will happen. We're faced with a kind of paradox that the pain of the sequester may end quicker if we feel more immediate pain.
 
    Of course, just because someone isn't feeling any pain from the sequester is hardly proof that it's doing no harm. Still, it's plausible that at least in the short run many won't feel any pain, particularly those pretty well off.

     On the other hands there certainly are those who will feel it immediately-and so it's not accurate to say that the White House called wolf-even if particular claims can be shown to be wrong or overblown.

     Not only will sequestration keep growth lower and unemployment higher than it would have otherwise been but as Robert Reich says, those with modest income will feel it very soon, indeed there are those feeling it now:

     "It will also hurt the most vulnerable. Some $1.9 billion in low-income rental subsidies are being eliminated, affecting 125,000 people. Cuts to the Department of Agriculture will eliminate rental assistance for another 10,000 low-income rural people. Meanwhile, 100,000 formerly homeless people are likely to be removed from their current emergency shelters."

     "More than 3.8 million Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits will have their monthly payments reduced by as much as 9.4 percent, and lose an average of $400 in benefits over their period of joblessness."

     "The Department of Education's Title I program, which helps schools serving more than a million disadvantaged students, will be cut $715 million, and $400 million will be cut from Head Start, the preschool program for poor children. And major cuts will be made in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which provides nutrition assistance and education."

       http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/stock-market-record-high_b_2812590.html

       Indeed, Huffington has a comprehensive look at the people and programs that will be hurt. While the Beltway news cycle is playing gotcha over a White House tour being canceled the local news station are documenting the kinds of pain the sequester is already causing.

      The cuts are already hitting funding for homeless shelters-so we will see more homelessness:

       "Sequestration will likely increase homelessness across Arizona. "In Maricopa county there is a waiting list for rental assistance with 3,700 names on it," reported KPNX. "That list is now closed and it could be a long time before anyone can get on it."

      In Arkansas they may hit a domestic violence program. The Republicans already fought the Violence Against Women Act for a year. It's finally passed but they have other ways to strike out against women who have been the victims of violence. In addition, it goes without saying that many government workers will lose their job:

       "Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado is cutting $623,000 from its budget because of sequestration, resulting in fewer employees, slower emergency response, and continued closure of the glacier basin campground. [KTVD-TV]"

      "Bell Helicopters in Fort Worth, Texas, has started offering incentive programs to workers to encourage them to retire early so that they can save money to deal with sequestration. [KDAF-TV]"

     "Twenty-three Tooele County employees around Salt Lake City were already laid off because of sequestration. "I thought it was a secure job, but apparently not," said one laid-off employee. [KTSU-TV]"

      Recovery efforts from a tornado in Atlanta will lose necessary federal dollars:

      "Recovery efforts following a tornado in Atlanta are being drained of federal help because of sequestration related cuts. [WAGA-TV]"

      Again, there will be many that wont feel any immediate pain, however, that won't stop the economy from growing more slowly than otherwise. As Jared Bernstein tells us, at best we can hope that the economy has a higher growth trend than is believed right now-yesterday's very strong job numbers might suggest that. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-we-can-say-about-todays-big-job.html

     So it's no big deal. Sure a White House tour got chopped but that was just the White House "crying wolf." Because what happens to tornado victims, domestic violence victims, the unemployed, the homeless, and government employees doesn't is no big deal-doesn't mean anything; they're definitely 47 percenters.. So it was just the White House tour-which was only the President playing wolf. 

     Of course there's the overall hit to the economy which won't necessarily be clear tomorrow but at some point it will be.