Sequestration And The 2014 House Races-- Can The Democrats Win Back Congress?

Debbie & Steve-- like Boehner & Cantor, they both voted for Sequestration

Friday Dave Weigel distinguished between Republicans in safely gerrymandered red districts and Republicans in districts where democracy is still in effect. The former don't give a rat's ass about how bad Sequestration is going to hurt because they know their districts were designed to elect Republicans. The former are more worried, at least about their own hides. Yesterday on the travel blog we showed how devastating Sequestration cuts will be for the airline industry and for other tourism-related industries. The Center for American Progress released a series of reports that show Sequestration will do little to shrink the deficit while exposing Americans to greater health risks, exacerbating disparities in public education across the country, and how, of course, the GOP-designed Sequestration will be particularly devastating for African-Americans and Hispanics. They also did a state by state breakdown of how across-the-board, meat-ax cuts to non-defense discretionary grants to states in education, public safety, workforce training and disease prevention will hurt specific states. That's cause for concern for senators who are all elected statewide, but of little consequence to GOP congressmen safely ensconced in their carefully gerrymandered districts that make them immune to public opinion-- other than public opinion fomented by Hate Talk Radio and Fox News. Because of the large number of Republicans elected from these kinds of districts, it's not likely Boehner could even stop Sequestration if he wanted to. Overall, the dozen states that will be made to bear the most pain will be California (10.75%), New York (8.84%), Texas (7.03%), Florida (4.68%), Illinois (3.99%), Pennsylvania (3.80%), Louisiana (3.42%), Michigan (2.91%), Ohio (2.85%) New Jersey (2.66%), and Massachusetts (2.54%) and North Carolina (2.42%).
Let's look at the dozen states most adversely impacted by various specific cuts. Who loses out by the long-advocated GOP chopping up Head Start, something the GOP has been trying to sabotage for decades?

• California- $51,000,000
• Texas- $30,000,000
• New York- $26,000,000
• Florida- $17,000,000
• Illinois- $17,000,000
• Ohio- $15,000,000
• Pennsylvania- $14,000,000
• Michigan- $14,000,000
• Georgia- $11,000,000
• Mississippi- $10,000,000
• Louisiana- $9,000,000
• North Carolina- $9,000,0000

The cuts fall almost entirely on urban school districts serving people of color and the working poor, not on white suburban and rural districts where Head Start isn't as important a factor. Now let's look at which states get hammered the most by the cuts to the FIRE grants program:

• California- $1,842,845
• Pennsylvania- $1,367,869
• Ohio- $1,214,261
• Alabama- $969,617
• Michigan- $881,625
• Florida- $844,933
• North Carolina- $732,102
• Illinois- $665,179
• Texas- $575,340
• Massachusetts- $556,986
• Minnesota- $554,859
• New Jersey- $542,538

This chart shows how many fewer people will be tested for HIV because of the cuts

• New York City- 43,057
• Florida- 38,270
• Texas- 30,544
• New York- 29,634
• California- 23,335
• New Jersey- 20,041
• Los Angeles County- 19,016
• Pennsylvania- 17,041
• Georgia- 15,230
• Maryland- 11,714
• Chicago- 10,843
• San Francisco- 10,205

And this chart shows how many fewer job seekers will be served when workforce training is cut up:

• California- 99,545
• Texas- 59,277
• Florida- 49,370
• New York- 47,175
• Illinois- 34,305
• Pennsylvania- 31,226
• Ohio- 30,794
• Michigan- 27,947
• Georgia- 24,352
• North Carolina- 23,542
• New Jersey- 22,744
• Virginia- 18,877

And this last one fits neatly into the Republican Party's pitiless War Against Women. It shows how many fewer women will get cancer screenings next year.

• Michigan- 1,840
• North Dakota- 1,750
• California- 1,455
• Texas- 1,369
• Indiana- 1,337
• Florida- 1,016
• Maryland- 960
• Washington- 938
• Minnesota- 933
• Ohio- 888
• Georgia- 874
• Wisconsin- 857

The latest polling from Pew shows that there is little support for these kinds of devastating cuts that the congressional Republicans are drooling for. For 18 of 19 programs tested, majorities want either to increase spending or maintain it at current levels. The survey finds higher percentages support increases rather than decreases in spending for education, veterans’ benefits, entitlements and other programs.

[W]hile Republicans are more supportive than Democrats of cutting funding for Medicare, Social Security and food and drug inspection, these remain minority positions within the GOP. More Republicans want to increase, rather than decrease, funding for Social Security (35% vs. 17%). And Republicans are as likely to say funding for Medicare should be increased as to say it should be decreased (24% vs. 21%).

So which Republican House Members are most vulnerable to defeat in 2014 if they back Sequestration? Certainly not the ones in heavily gerrymandered districts designed to keep electing Republicans. All those cuts in states like Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida won't hurt too many electoral chances. But these are the districts with Republican congressmembers where Obama did best in November (His share of the vote is in parenthesis). Now if we could only persuade Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the lunkheads at the DCCC to target allthese folks, instead of protecting their friends and allies:

• CA-31- Gary Miller (57.2)
• CA-21- David Valadao (54.6)
• NJ-02- Frank LoBiondo (53.5)
• FL-27- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (53.1)
• NY-19- Chris Gibson (52.1)
• NY-03- John Runyan (51.8)
• NY-11- Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (51.6)
• CO-06- Mike Coffman (51.6)
• IA-03- Tom Latham (51.4)
• CA-10- Jeff Denham (50.6)
• FL-13- Bill Young (50.1)
• VA-02- Scott Ridell (50.1)
• WA-08- Dave Reichert (49.7)
• MN-03- Erik Paulsen (49.6)
• NV-03- Joe Heck (49.5)
• PA-08- Michael Fitzpatrick (49.3)
• MN-02- John Kline (49.1)
• MI-06- Fred Upton (48.8)
• VA-04 Randy Forbes (48.8)
• VA-10- Frank Wolf (48.8)
• NY22- Richard Hanna (48.8)
• FL-25- Mario Diaz-Balart (48.7)
• IL-13- Rodney Davis (48.6)
• PA-07- Pat Meehan (48.5)
• NY-23- Tom Reed (48.4)
• OH-10- Michael Turner (48.2)
• PA-06- Jim Gerlach (48.1)
• MI-08- Mike Rogers (48.0)
• PA-15- Charlie Dent (47.9)
• WA-03- Jaime Herrera Butler (47.9)
• CA-25- Buck McKeon (47.8)
• WI-07- Sean Duffy (47.8)
• OH-14- David Joyce (47.6)
• WI-08- Reid Ribble (47.6)
• WI-01- Paul Ryan (47.4)
• CA-39- Ed Royce (47.1)
• FL-07- John Mica (47.1)

If Democrats won just half of these seats, Nancy Pelosi would be Speaker in 2015. Will Debbie Wasserman Schultz demand that her slimy cronies Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart get free passes? Will Steve Israel continue giving free passes to his corrupt buddies Fred Upton, Buck McKeon, John Mica, Mike Rogers, Michael Turner, Ed Royce, and Frank LoBiondo? Probably. None of them are in the early DCCC programs holding GOP incumbents accountable. The Democrats can't win back the House with Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Steve Israel playing favoritism games with Republicans and wasting money on Blue Dogs running for impossible southern seats.