Sequestration? I Don't Think So

Lockheed Martin announces a layoff of 4,000, and then this paragraph:

Defense contractors have been scaling back their workforces in response to the package of federal budget cuts known as sequestration. 

Sequestration? That didn't start until earlier this year (2013). And Lockheed Martin has been laying off folks since 2008:

Since 2008, Lockheed Martin has cut 146,000 employees, to 116,000 today. 

Since 2008, the company has cut 146,000 employees, all well before the sequestration. And somehow the reporter felt the 4,000 layoffs announced today were due to "the" sequestration. And despite the sequestration ...

... the Congressional Budget Office [has] estimated that total federal outlays will continue to increase even with the sequester by an average of $238.6 billion per year during the next decade, although at a somewhat lesser rate (wiki).

Power Africa For $6.5 Billion And Fund The White House Tours For 100 Years With $500 Million

What's the quickest way to get electricity to Africa? Think about that for a bit. I have to get some coffee, do some administrative stuff. After that I will get back to the answer. It's a serious post, and something y'all should enjoy.

Original Post

Last week I posted this:

June 15, 2013: President O'Bama's African trip this month will cost $100 million.  If they could cut $4 million from the African trip, they could fund one year of White House tours at $75,000/week. 

It turns out that $100 million figure was hugely under-estimated.

The cost of the trip just went up another $7 billion to Power Africa. Ka-ching. And the president's trip is just beginning.

I've long given up worrying about the US deficit and spending. No matter how broke we are, we can always find money to give to Palestine and Africa.

On May 24, 2009, in an interview, President O'Bama said, very memorably, "the US is broke."

As noted above, funding White House tours cost about $75,000/week.

100 years x 50 weeks x $100,000/week = $500 million.
10^2 * 5*10^1 *10^5 = 5 * 10^8 = 5 00 000 000. Yeah, that looks like $500 million.

So, instead of a $7 billion Power Africa program, if we made it a $6.5 billion Power Africa program, we could fund White House tours for 100 years. I doubt anyone in Africa will even see the difference between $7 billion and $6.5 billion over several years.

I used $100,000/week (instead of the stated cost of $75,000/week) to provide free lunches and maybe even ObamaPhones for those who take the White House tours. As inflation increases the cost of the tours, we could cut back on ObamaPhones and then the box lunches.

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Our six-year-old granddaughter's still life drawing (she will soon be seven):

Quick Random Note -- CO2 Emissions

Maybe some activist environmentalist could calculate the amount of excess CO2 produced by airline delays due to the ObamaSequester.

Don suggested that. I completely missed it.