Tag Archives: sequestration

Health, News, Politics

Sen. Patty Murray Presents 2013 Golden Tennis Shoe Awards

At this year’s Golden Tennis Shoe Awards luncheon, held Monday, April 29, at the downtown Seattle Westin, Senator Patty Murray put the spotlight on the Special Olympics, ovarian cancer, and violence against women, through awards to Tyler May, Swedish Cancer Institute medical oncologist Saul E. Rivkin, and the Tulalip Tribes’ Deborah Parker, respectively. Though Murray, in her rise to budgetary power in the Senate, has gained a reputation for earmarks, as these awards indicate, her concerns are difficult to militate against.

Murray had met May and Parker separately, when they traveled to D.C. on citizen lobbying efforts. May, who years ago found that golf sat at the intersection of his athleticism and autism, was at the Capitol to help the push for reauthorization of the Special Olympics Sport and Empowerment Act of 2004, while Parker was speaking out for an expansion of coverage in reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, so that non-Indians responsible for abuse that occurs on tribal lands will be prosecuted. It was, as Murray was to learn, a very personal crusade.

May dedicated his award to all Special Olympians. “I’m trying to put myself out of business,” Dr. Rivkin — who founded the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research in 1996, in memory of his wife — said drily, accepting his award. Parker, for her part, invited her family and tribal members who were in the audience to stand and share in the award.

Murray had invited Dr. Jill Biden, whose husband works for the government, to speak as well. Biden’s address took a global view of women’s empowerment, hitting on the themes of access to education, freedom from violence, and cultivation of leadership potential. Referencing Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, Biden insisted, “Now is not the time to lower our voices.”

On Tuesday, Murray toured the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, sitting in on a roundtable discussion on sequestration impacts on research funding with scientists from heard from the Hutch, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, UW Medicine, and the Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute. FHCRC’s Randy Main, its vice president and chief financial officer, estimated that cuts in federal funding could subtract $41 million from the Center’s revenues alone. Murray has shepherded a budget with no NIH cuts through the Senate, but House of Representatives Republicans have not been in a compromising mood.

News, Politics

The Blue Angels Get a White House Petition

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The Blue Angels at Seafair 2012 (Photo: MvB)
The Blue Angels at Seafair 2012 (Photo: MvB)

As much as is possible, The SunBreak tries to ignore the activities of the “other” Washington, for the simple reason that it takes far too much time and effort to figure out what the hoopleheads in the nation’s Capitol are up to. The news about the potential grounding of the Navy’s Blue Angels for the latter half of 2013 is a case in point.

Not only are we witness to U.S. News & World Report‘s ignorance of the existence of Seafair:

The 65-year-old organization has more than 30 events scheduled for the latter half of the year, including shows at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., at the end of August, in San Diego, Calif., in early October and at Pensacola, Fla., in early November.

— really, Maryland makes it on the short list, but not Seattle? — but we have to look up what “sequestration” means, and on a Monday morning, too.

Before we do that, at least some area residents will be interested to learn that there’s a White House petition to protect the Blue Angels program, a fact that will be bitterly resented by many under the Angels’ thundering practice path. Democracy is indeed messy. (Personally, I could stand with the Blue Angels visiting every other year, or showing up every four years, like the Olympics. But then I’m of the same mind about fireworks, so I disqualify myself from the debate entirely.)

In theory, sequestration (mandatory cuts so frightening they were supposed to promote compromise) will occur if Congress can’t pass a budget by the end of March. It would have been the end of 2012, but they punted. Under sequestration, the Navy would have to cut $4.6 billion from its budget. Even if sequestration is avoided, the Blue Angels aren’t out of range of the budget axe — the Budget Control Act of 2011 slashes $487 billion in defense spending over the next decade, and its likely that any budget agreement reached this March would add to that.