U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford is bashing President Barack Obama (and rightfully so) for restricting public access to open air government monuments and memorials during the partial government shutdown that began on October 1.
“Yesterday and this morning I took to the floor of the House to denounce the closing of the Lincoln Memorial – an open air monument that has never before been closed to the public in the history of our Republic,” Sanford said. “It wasn’t closed in any of the last 17 government shutdowns over the last 35 years, but fits with the pattern of President Obama using public inconvenience as a way of scoring political points.”
Sanford said Obama’s tactics are consistent with his prior shuttering of White House tour services. Not only that, he says the political “gamesmanship” is actually costing taxpayers money.
“At the time of the debate on the sequester the President said they would have to discontinue public tours of the White House,” he said. “This along with being a national first, is still in effect though their office can somehow afford to spend $250,000 on calligraphers. It’s become clear to me that the Obama Administration is actually spending money to close these monuments – having to reassign staff, renting barricades and the like.”
Sanford is correct … regardless of who you blame for the shutdown (Obama, Republicans, Tea Partiers, All of the Above) the bottom line in this case is that taxpayer money is being spent to make the shutdown seem worse than it is.
That’s inexcusably petty on the part of the Obama administration …
56 comments
To quote the ancient scholars, (potus) wakes up each morning with a turd in his teeth…..
Yep yep.
Hey, chek this out.
https://www.fitsnews.com/2013/10/02/shutdown-the-negotiations-begin/#comment-1070614402
Well, that reminds me of this story about negotiating —- a repeat)
————————————————————————————-
“Good morning. I came to this store because I don’t like to bargain.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’re strictly a one-price outfit.”
“Excellent. I like that blue suit over there. What will it cost?”
“Like I said, I don’t fool around with bargaining. So I’m not going to ask $250 for this suit, or even $235. I’m going to give you my best price – $220.
“Well, you’re my kind of businessman, and that’s why I’m here. I won’t fool around and offer you $165 for that suit, or even $175. I’ll give you $200 for that suit.”
“You can have it for $210.”
“I’ll take it.”
What a fucking moron. Make that two of them. Sanford and Sic.
Yeah, geniuses. It takes federal money to run federal programs.
Brilliant.
Azzhole.
The WWII Monument is built and paid for. The Park Police are “essential employees”.
What other costs are involved?
They shut the C&O Canal Pathway down for visitors, The pathway was completed during the Colonial Period, requires no maintenance at this time. They shut the built and paid for bathrooms along the path, paid to have the porta potties removed and removed the handles from the manual pumps that people used to water their pets – all at a cost far greater than they spend to maintain the pathway each week.
They spent money to keep you from using the pathway.
They attempted to close the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway – a private entity with a contract that actually makes money for the government. They forced the City Tavern in Philadelphia to close even though it made money for the government and had been in almost continuous operations since the early 1770s. They really over played their hand when they tried to force Mount Vernon to close – it doesn’t belong to the government and the shared parking lot actually belongs to the society that manages Mount Vernon.
This is an attempt by the Obama Administration to create media images and Americans are finally seeing through it.
I see you are still want to talk about bike paths while thousands of Americans suffer real world damage, by the Republican shut down. I think we can all see where the spin is.
Perhaps after your buddy Willie confirmed the problem with bank loans today you will see you simply did not know what you were talking about yesterday, when you told everyone to just go to Quicken.
In addition, here is an article of just some of the real world damage.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/01/the-nine-most-painful-consequences-of-a-government-shutdown/
I will work on that list of food centers that you promised to help support if they are shut down because of the government shutdown.
Cry me a river Jan,
Just to save you some time, we already support Harvest Hope, Daybreak and the SC Baptist Association along with Samaritan’s Purse.
With home loans taking an average of 30 days or so right now to close, what’s an extra 4-5 days? My point was not that many banks don’t use IRS data, rather that the IRS is a revenue collection agency of the government and shouldn’t be used as a data source for banks.
As for your article – oh darn, you might not be able to get a free flu shot or a bunch or regulatory agencies will be shut down for a while (for all the good some of them are doing). The author even points out that “…It’s very possible that nothing will go awry while these regulators are closed…”. You might have missed the fact that the article was updated when their false claim that “…WIC would run out of money…” was refuted. The article points out that the idiots in charge of closing all the parks are losing money for the government.
Darn some Head Start programs may close, slowly and some kids won’t get to be NIH guinea pigs for a while. Yes, that’s right – they’re not being denied treatment, they’re being denied the right to enter experimental programs.
Will Veterans suffer – yes they will and that’s a damn shame. What makes it so bad is that the President compromised with all his cronies about the ACA but refuses to do so with the House.
Ok, I concede most of those things are not anything Republicans care about. So maybe some of these will be of interest.
Alaska:
Some 1,900 civilian workers received furlough notices at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
National Transportation Safety Board Investigators into plane crashes in Alaska were furloughed.
Arkansas:
More than 85,000 meals for Arkansas children were at risk of being ended. Some 2,000 newborn babies woud potentially not receive infant formula.
Federal workers earning $11,000-a-year to work at a shelter in Little Rock were forced to work without pay.
California:
1,282 marines were furloughed at the Marine Air Ground Task Force Combat Center
Colorado:
The Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit in Grand Junction was closed.
At least 5,000 federal workers at research labs across the state have been furloughed.
Connecticut:
13 Head Start programs that serve 320 children in Bridgeport, Connecticut were shut down completely.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in New Haven furloughed 40 staffers.
Delaware:
500 civilian employees were furloughed at Dover Air Force Base.
Florida:
More than 7,000 workers — mostly from NASA and defense industry — have been furloughed in central Florida.
Georgia:
3,100 civilian workers at Fort Stewart were told to stay home on furlough.
Seventy-five percent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 13,000 workers have been furloughed. Researchers have had to halt their studies.
Medical aid and cash assistance for refugees settled in the state have been frozen.
Hawaii:
The state’s four commissaries were forced to sell off perishable items before shutting down Tuesday.
Idaho:
850 of the state’s National Guard’s civilian workers (half of the total staff) were furloughed.
Illinois:
2,500 civilian employees at the Naval Station Great Lakes turned over their duties to active-duty sailors and went home.
Indiana:
Hoosier National Forest closed campgrounds and furloughed 45 staffers.
Iowa:
A cafeteria in an Iowa federal office building usually has 500 to 600 customers a day. There were 200 on Tuesday.
Kansas:
More than 300 civilian employees were out of work at McConnell Air Force Base.
Kentucky:
The Kentucky National Guard furloughed 1,300 employees.
Louisiana:
The Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans furloughed about 1,800 civilian workers.
Maine:
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s director for Maine closed his city office.
Maryland:
Maryland’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation received roughly 4,000 applications for unemployment benefits because of workers being furloughed.
Massachusetts:
A government employee union official estimates 95 percent of staff members in her department were furloughed.
A Cape Cod father of three is prevented from starting last-chance experimental treatment for his terminal cancer.
Michigan:
State officials estimated that the shutdown would cost them $18 million a day.
Minnesota:
Air Force Reserve furloughed 300 workers at the 934th Airlift Wing. “How do you feed your family? How do you house your family? It’s ridiculous right now,” said one of those furloughed workers.
Mississippi:
450 of the Vicksburg District’s 1,100 federal employees were expected to be furloughed.
Montana:
The commodity supplemental food program was shut down and food is not being distributed.
Nevada:
530 Nevada National Guard technicians were furloughed.
1,100 civilian employees at Nellis base outside Las Vegas were sent home.
New Hampshire:
At Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Tuesday morning, 1,000 shipyard employees were forced off the job.
At New Hampshire National Guard Base, 332 Army and Air Force technicians were told to not come into work.
New Jersey:
More than half the 6,700 civilian workers at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst have been furloughed.
North Carolina:
The Department of Health and Human Services told 337 employees in the state not to show up for work Wednesday.
North Dakota:
The North Dakota National Guard furloughed 430 of its employees.
Ohio:
More than 1,800 Ohio National Guard employees and 8,700 air base workers were put on unpaid leave.
Oklahoma:
Officials at Tinker Air Force Base estimated that 2,900 of 14,000 civilian employees were furloughed.
Pennsylvania:
The VA halted vocational rehabilitation services.
60 employees at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area were furloughed.
Rhode Island:
The Rhode Island National Guard furloughed 300 of its 425 civilian workers.
At the Naval War College, civilian instructors were told to stay home.
South Carolina:
Approximately 1,200 federal technicians for the S.C. National Guard were furloughed.
South Dakota:
Tribal funds for foster care and other assistance were halted.
The Davison County Conservation District was shut down because it operates at an office in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Service Center.
Texas:
23,000 military workers have been furloughed in San Antonio.
Utah:
Roughly 65,000 could see support from the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children halted.
Half of the state’s national guard full-time workers were furloughed.
Vermont:
The U.S. Forest Service in Rutland was closed.
Virginia:
Roughly 3,600 people were furloughed at the Navy shipyard in Norfolk.
West Virginia:
1150 national guard employees were furloughed.
Wisconsin:
The state’s Hunger Task Force said it would lose out on 217,000 pounds of food it receives every two weeks from the federal government if the shutdown lasts into mid-October.
Wyoming:
Oil and gas leases between private companies and public lands were halted in the state.
WOW! You can cut and paste! Vermont:
The U.S. Forest Service in Rutland was closed.In the WHOLE STATE OF VERMONT, that’s all you can come up with???
Think for yourself, not you Leninist Masters!
Hey Jan – re-read the letter attached to Slick’s “confirmation” of your belief that IRS records , from the IRS, are somehow required for loans. All that article does is prove my point that having an established relationship wins every time.
“They spent money to keep you from using the pathway.”
Exactly, it’s pure spite and agenda driven.
Honestly though Colonel, won’t you one day come to the realization that that is the agenda of most pols on both sides of the aisle?
The pols aren’t going to cut the things that are minimally desired first, because it speaks directly to the issue of state power and why there was supposed to be a ‘limited gov’t’.
They don’t want that…they want the power….as much of it as possible.
So it’s parks that everyone uses, threats on old peoples social security, soldier pay, etc. first….the meaningless shit they could cut out without anyone bitching will be last on the list.
They want to scare people into never rooting for a shutdown.
The irony of this is it’s still only 25% that is shutdown….not enough to actually balance a budget still yet.
JHC your are proof, the less intelligent people are the more likely they are to show it.
Lord I was so stressed not knowing what Marky Mark had to say on this. What a relief!
One has to wonder if Sanford hired his old employee, what with all of the posts on Sanford recently. Howard Rich must not pay all the bills anymore.
Nail on the head. He obviously has.
Why the fuck are conservatives whining about White House tours? I thought such things weren’t “core functions” of government. Got to love the small government folks whining about a lack of government-provided landmarks, too.
I’m sure Sanford and his ilk feel awfully terrible about their constant assault on the National Parks’ funding, right? Right. For real. Yup. Absolutely. Crocodile tears were shed.
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/long-before-the-shutdown-republicans-were-hurting-national-parks/?_r=0
We’re not whining, we’re pointing out the duplicity of the Administration – they’re spending money to keep you from using things, that cost them no money for you to use, to create whining for the media to report on, so they can point out how evil Republicans are.
Smirks is right. Under the Tea Party plan these monuments and gov owed facilities would not even exist. You should be happy they are closed.
Do you really think Republicans would not be doing the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot? Do you really believe that Tea Party politicians would not expend gov $$ to simply make a point?
How much gov money did Ted Cruz spend for his pointless 21 hour speech?
Buford did Clinton or Reagan barricade the monuments on the National Mall?
Its amazing to me the Republicans are worried about the monuments when the shut down is seriously hurting thousands and thousands of people. I approve of the shut down. I want it to be as public as possible. People need to know that there are people out there truly suffering because of this shut down, and a heck of a lot more than having your vacation screw up.
Faux News and the Republicans try to cover the damage up and pretend its no big deal, but thousands of people have had their pay checks cut off. How long can most Americans go without a pay check before they begin to suffer real problems, with paying for mortgages, car payments, food, rent, etc.
Excuse me I approve of shutting down the monuments, not the government shut down.
If we shut down the Interstate system and U.S. Highways that would be about as public as Obama could make, would that satisfy you?
I was part of the shut downs in 95/96, no one lost their pay and I did not hear of a single person that lost their house, car, starved to death, kicked out of their apartment, ect. Every single government employee received every cent of their pay even though they were told to go home.
So you are saying this is a stunt, and the Republicans will assure that all the people who have been laid off will be compensated whether they are government employees or they work for government contractors.
Perhaps they could personally guarantee the loans of all these folks who are not getting a check, and make the banks go through with loans that have been stalled.
How do you even know how many people in the private sector lost their job or pay because of the 95/96 shut down?
If you can’t see that this shutdown is caused by both Republicans and Democrat you must be the person that watches MSNBC.
.
You do realize the Normandy Memorial is also barricaded and that’s way across the Atlantic in France. Yes I would say it’s a stunt and it’s on the Executive Branch of Federal Government. There is nothing wrong with our government, just the people we’ve elected to run it.
I’m not a Republican or Democrat but a fiscal conservative that doesn’t care what you do or who you do it with as long as you stay out of my back pocket doing it.
BTW there weren’t as many government contractors in 95/96 as there are
now and the National Debt caused by Democrats and Republicans was not
$17 Trillion
No actually I am saying that the shutdown was caused by less than 1/2 of the members of house of Representatives, all of whom happen to be Republicans. 21 House Republicans have already stated they would support a bill to end the shut down without defunding the ACA. That added to house Democrats is sufficient to end this fiasco. But the house leadership is to afraid of the Tea Party to let it come to a vote and let majority rule. So yes I blame the Tea Party Republicans for the shut down.
I really don’t care who you blame, it makes no difference to me.
It takes both Republicans and Democrats to shut down the Government.
Untrue, Either party can shut down the government. As the Teapublicans are showing us right now.
Jan, one of these days you are going to hear a loud pop. You need to go to the Huffington Post and see the White House statement about wining.
All American War cemeteries, even the ones overseas, are funded with Federal $$$.
No, really, so is the Interstate system but it’s still open and it’s funded with Federal $$$.
Translation:
I’m a Republican.
Show me a fiscal conservative Democrat and I will support him, there use to be a bunch of them, I would venture to say I’ve voted for more Democrats than you have voted for Republicans.
Nope, just sayin its an oshitflrbrains stunt.
Jan,
You continue to miss the point – I could care less about the monuments being open or closed, I’m 8,000 miles away and was in DC four months ago doing my “tour de monument”. We are pointing out the duplicity of the manufactured crisis the Administration is staging.
Less than 25% of the federal work force is furloughed, that amounts to about 1 tenth of 1 percent of the population. People are not “being laid off in droves”. “Nutrition Centers” are not being shuttered left and right. We might even have some deficit benefit out of this is they’d stop blowing money to stage these made for TV crisis.
Is there hardship – yes indeed. Will it get worse – probably. Maybe people will wake up and work to make themselves less dependent on the government after this.
I am not missing any points, I acknowledge and reject your points. Your just spouting more Faux News, Teapublican disinformation.
I favor making the shut down as public as possible, because the more people it effects the sooner it will end. Right now the burden is being absorbed by a few while the tea party and Faux News make lite of the suffering of those who have to absorb the cost. It should be absorbed by all. I think no federal employee should be exempt. All federal employees should be furloughed until the Government reopens. That includes active duty military, air traffic controllers, Congressmen and staff; everyone. Maybe that sounds harsh, but its really not, because had that been the rule there would never have been a shut down.
Excuse me You’re not your.
AP has been reporting that vistors were allowed on the grounds…But I’m looking at a picture from 1995 with a guard and barricades around the Lincoln Memorial.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/01/politics/different-government-shutdowns/
If Clinton did it it was a stunt also, can you find a picture for Reagan? There were around 15 shutdown during his 8 years.
So you’re saying this is a Democratic tactic? Sorry, I can’t find a pic from the 80s of a momunent during a shutdown. That Reagan shutdown it done 8 times says something though.
I say it is an Executive Branch tactic to barricade open air Memorials, all the President (R or D) has to say is “No barricades”.
I also think a shutdown every once in a while is a good thing, eventually the parties will have to negotiate, Reagan and O’Neill were masters compared to these Bozos.
The Lincoln Memorial was actually closed for repairs – notice the long “institutional green” wooden wall in the shot. All of the buildings in the article we actually closed as was appropriate in a shut down.
If you go to the NPS website, you’ll discover that the man who runs the website is apparently furloughed as this is the message that was posted: “Because of the federal government shutdown, all national parks are closed and National Park Service webpages are not operating. For more information, go to http://www.doi.gov.”
The caption from WAB link…”A Park Service police officer
stands guard in front of the Lincoln Memorial during a partial shutdown
of the federal government in November 1995. Many government services and
agencies were closed at the end of 1995 and beginning of 1996 as
President Bill Clinton battled a Republican-led Congress over spending
levels.”
It must be true, it’s on the internet.
It really doesn’t say the Memorial is shut down, just insinuates it’s shut down. How far does FOX news lean right, how far does CNN lean left, I guess it depends on how much you think or don’t think for your self.
Remember Sanford’s “military service” while governor? In the SC Air National Guard? Repairing helicopter electronic equipment? And we paid for that? And he’ll collect a pension for that?
I want my money back from that particular political hypocrite.
how come fits, the ‘libertarian’ ,sounds more like an extremist tea party republican,everyday?
Easy
Because he IS a tea party extremist Republican!
Might as well go whole hog and change the name of this site to SANFORDSNEWS – and like the little catch-phrase of “Unfair. Imbalanced” you have under FITSNEWS you could add something like “Take a Hike” under the SANFORDSNEWS . . .
I have never seen anything more disgusting than the Tea Party politicians using the Vets, there to visit the memorial, for photo opps…Bachmann did everything but kiss that one guy on the lips..poor man…Good to know that Sanford is for voting for a clean bill so that everything can be opened back up and 800,000 people can go back to work. Sad to see that he’s more concerned about a slab of stone than living breathing children being fed……oh forgot he was more concerned with his mistress than his own children.
Since the White House is no longer the People’s House might as well go ahead and bulldoze it to make way for the sure to come Obama Memorial
It will be interesting who gets the contract. A quick check on Google had no hits for any sculptor who is currently working with horse turds
Also if the Obama Memorial is to be a true representation of how wide and deep Obama has crapped on the American Taxpayer, not sure if that much horse shit could fit on the site
Buck Farack
Jim, try googling “piss-ants” ……….
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-04/is-obamacare-s-first-enrollee-bogus-.html
Waiting a year would actually give these idiots time to get their roll out right.
Do not give support or comfort to the enemy.
Tru dat!
If they’re going to pay workers backpay for time missed… why don’t they just have them come to work? The way it is now, it’s a paid vacation for all furloughed employees.
Sanfraud who used tax payer funds for a booty call shut the hell up.