The very first thing this morning I walked outside and looked upwards to see if the sky was gone.

Fortunately, it is still right where I left it last night, and looks none the worse for wear.

Checking on the status of a constant and dependable scientific reality should not be seen as excessive, given the media's month's-long predictions that today it would fall.

The media, a concept which defies definition in the real world, is a subgroup of a lower order of being that is identifiable by its nonstop braying and carping. The intensity of its noise-making ebbs and flows in direct proportion to the ability of its current subject to draw attention to it – the media that is, not the subject.

The subject for today, as reported for months by the media, is drastic cuts in federal government spending scheduled to take effect this morning. The cuts, according to the media, herald the end of civilization as we know it; or at least as it is known in a section of the Planet Earth commonly known as "inside the Beltway," or metropolitan Washington, D.C.

The media claimed that if Congress and the President couldn't find common financial ground for our astronomical federal spending and out-of-control debt, then everyone and everything, everywhere, would be negatively impacted by a sudden dearth of federal tax dollars across the board. This plan was conceived of and hatched by President Barack Hussein Obama, and put in place with help from his henchmen in Congress and the media.

It is called Sequestration but now the prez wants us to believe it will cause the downfall of the United States of America and it is all the fault of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. So all interested parties inside the beltway are arguing interminably about this and the media is right there jabbing any malingerers who get tired of the game with a sharp stick to get them back inside the ring.

Since there are far more outstretched hands and fat wallets demanding constant and immediate resupply from federal tax dollars than the supply of federal tax dollars, the argument breaks down along the lines of either limit the demand or create more tax dollars. Failure to do so, the media claims, will be calamitous.

But in the last week or so cooler heads determined that if the aforementioned agreement was not reached, there really wouldn't be CUTS in federal spending, there just would be a miniscule reduction in the INCREASE in federal spending. Big difference. No one will be laid off, no services will dry up, no children will starve, no teachers will be on the unemployment line and the sky will stay right where I left it last night.

Do you know where the federal politicians and the symbiotic media that feast on them came up with that idea? From every single municipality and local school board in the United States of America, that's where!

If you own property and pay taxes you know that municipal budget season is upon most of us and if we hold our collective breath for just a month we will be exposed to headlines and television news segments screaming that proposed local budgets are being "cut to the bare bones," and can't be cut one cent further or "the children will suffer."

Every single year America's towns and cities come up with budgets that are always higher than the previous year's budget even if real costs of government have gone down.
Some years for instance, municipalities will pay off bond issues, or school enrollments will drop, meaning there is no longer a need for as many teachers or administrators, or the money that paid them, or paid off the bonds.

But even with reduced needs, the town councils and selectmen and mayors and school boards find ways to fill in those nasty spending gaps with other items that apparently reproduce with abandon in hidden supply closets that are jammed packed with unreported tools of good governance. This "reproduction of need" comes with total disregard for the taxpayers who pay for all of this one way or another, including the higher costs of goods and services that are passed on to consumers as a result of corporate taxation and regulation.

Know what we do in my community when the government turns a blind eye and deaf ear to the plight of taxpayers? We hold referendums … or referenda if you prefer … because it usually takes more than one to get the attention of the tax and spend people. And we keep holding them – a total of 13 in one fiscal year a while back – until the budget increases are reducing to a point where a majority will accept them.

I realize that it sounds as if we have the situation under control, but each year the cost of government increases and we end up paying more. All we can do short of firing the whole damn lot of politicians from all parties that are party to this assault on the public is hold the level of increases to something more or less manageable.

Success in life sometimes is measured in little victories.

So today, just like so many other days in so many communities across the nation, things will go on as they always do. I will continue to be myself, you will continue to be yourselves, the world will turn, the sun will shine and the sky will stay right where it is supposed to be, doing what it is supposed to do.

Happy Sequestration Day. I propose we make this a federal holiday, and in the future celebrate by jamming all the politicians and media into a place where the sun doesn't shine so they can bray and each other and contemplate their navels.

I understand there is just such a place, just east of the Washington Monument, attached to and beneath the White House. The Media says it is a special bunker built by and for Barack Hussein Obama, but exactly why he needs it is unclear. Now it has a purpose, thank you very much.