Today’s edition of “Spared by the Sequester” features $101,931.97 spent to upgrade the audio-visual equipment in nine classrooms of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute.
The award notice states, “The classrooms are used for daily classes and accommodate approximately 30 students. The classrooms listed in the solicitation currently have outdated and inconsistent audiovisual equipment. This project will upgrade the audiovisual equipment in each room, ensuring ease of use and consistency.”
So when you see sentences in news stories like, “for law enforcement agencies all over the country, the federal budget cut put in place under the sequester could spell disaster,” note that part of the problem is that the government chose to cut areas like that, while continuing to spend money on things like an $11,000-per-classroom audio-visual system.
You’ll recall, of course, that the Senate considered a bill to give the president greater flexibility in administering sequester cuts. Only two Democrats voted for it, along with 36 Republicans.