"I'm Not A Dictator" - Email tells feds to make sequester as painful as promised.

PRIORITIES !

"I'm Not A Dictator" - Email tells feds to make sequester as painful as promised.(TWT).By Stephen Dinan.The White House announced Tuesday that it is canceling tours of the president’s home for the foreseeable future as the sequester spending cuts begin to bite and the administration makes good on its warnings of painful decisions.

Announcement of the decision — made in an email from the White House Visitors Office — came hours after The Washington Times reported on another administration email that seemed to show at least one agency has been instructed to make sure the cuts are as painful as President Obama promised they would be.

In the internal email, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown said he asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to minimize the impact, and he said he was told not to do anything that would lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of.

“We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that ‘APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be,” Mr. Brown, in the internal email, said his superiors told him.

Neither Mr. Brown nor the main APHIS office in Washington returned calls seeking comment, but Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack, who oversees the agency, told Congress he is trying to give flexibility where he can.

For now, though, the cuts remain in place — and that means the end of White House tours.

“Due to staffing reductions resulting from sequestration, we regret to inform you that White House Tours will be canceled effective Saturday, March 9, 2013 until further notice. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reschedule affected tours,” the White House said in an email to members of Congress.

The decision drew a derisive response from Capitol Hill, where Republicans said the move undercut Mr. Obama’s promises of openness. Rep. Bill Johnson, Ohio Republican, said President Lincoln managed to keep the White House open during the darkest days of the Civil War, and wondered why Mr. Obama couldn’t do the same.

“If the president is unable to figure out how to keep the White House open to the American people after an 8.2 percent budget cut, then the American people are entitled to some answers from their chief executive as to why.”Hmmmm........Meanwhile DONATING his new BFF Morsi's Islamist Government another $250 Million in aid.......Sequester?What Sequester?Read the full story here.