Reign of Pain, Redux

A couple more incidents in the great war by the Obama administration and the Major Ultra-liberal Media Program (MUMPs) that cutting the rate of growth of the federal government to a lousy couple of percentage points per year is worse than snipping a full term babies spinal column.

Democrat Senators Vote to Keep White House Tours Closed: Elvis Cruises, Ukranian Easter Egg Workshops and Wine Trains Remain Open

Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, offered an amendment to free up $8 million money to keep both the White House and several national parks open on their regular schedules. He proposed reclaiming money from national heritage areas elsewhere in the National Park Service budget.

But Democrats objected, saying it was a show vote that was note going to accomplish what Mr. Coburn said it would. They also said canceling park service heritage money would hurt their home states.

They defeated Mr. Coburn’s amendment on a 54-45 vote, with nearly every Republican voting to reopen the White House and with almost all Democrats voting to back Mr. Obama’s decision.

Heritage money!  Oooo, that sounds important!  What is it used for?

Coburn’s amendment would have cut $8 million from the Heritage Areas fund, which he says pays for wine trains, Elvis cruises and Ukrainian Easter Egg workshops. His amendment would then provide $5 million of that $8 million cut to restart tours of the White House and make improvements to national parks, including the Flight 93 National Memorial visitors’ center. Source: The Hill

Well thank goodness they saved the wine trains! And  Elvis is a little appreciated American treasure, it's not like they've turned his house into a theme park or anything.  Somebody must go to those Ukrainian Easter Egg workshops or they wouldn't have them.

Meanwhile, over at the Department of Education, while denying the poor long suffering Indians Native Americans funds for education, they are adding a new, highly paid bureaucrat in Washington D.C.

The Department of Education’s sequester cuts are taking a brutal toll on federally-funded schools on Native American reservations, but the federal agency still found money to create a new six-figure job promoting “Educational Excellence for African-Americans.”

School officials on reservations across Minnesota have begun making painful cuts to the current budget in anticipation of sequester cuts, adding students to classrooms, slashing course offerings and leaving vacant jobs unfilled, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. At least one reservation is considering shortening the school year to save money...

But in Washington, education funding cuts did not stop the appointment this month of a former elementary school teacher and aide to Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. to the job of executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans. David Johns was given the newly created job, where he will be “asked to identify evidence-based best practices to improve African-American student achievement from cradle to career,” according to the Department of Education...  

Johns’ salary in the new job is $123,758, according to a department official.

One hundred and a quarter ain't all that much by Washington D.C. standards (there's pretty substantial "locality adjustment" for civil service salaries in the DC area), and I'm sure his experience as an elementary school teacher makes him well qualified to boss his underlings at Education.  I mean, if the Indians Native Americans wanted a good education, maybe they shouldn't have killed Custer.