If the sequester is not being implemented as painfully as possible, then why are thousands of federal jobs being advertised, while a million federal employees will be sitting at home?
According Bridget Johnson with PJ media the federal government is still hiring nonessential workers, despite the fact that the administration has announced half the federal workforce, or over a million jobs, will be furloughed due to the sequester. In fact, according to Bridget, over the past ten days, at least 2,596 new jobs have been posted to USA Jobs, the federal government's main hiring website.
Johnson reports that the posted jobs ranged from soil technicians, a recreational forestry technician, and public affairs specialists, to triple digit salaried supervisory positions. 107 of the posted positions are within the Department of Homeland Security, who while implementing the sequester released 10 undocumented workers with the highest level of offenses from prison and threatened to back up security lines at airports. Veteran Affairs posted a whopping 909 new hires, despite the fact that the OMB threatened that thousands of once homeless vets could be pushed back to the streets.
Previously, I wrote that the president is implementing the sequester cuts as painfully as possible in order to sour any chances of future spending cuts. Americans should see right through these tactics: If the government is hiring all these nonessential workers, then surely they don't need to cut essential programs. Nice try, Mr. President.