New Mexico Republican Whines About Layoffs At Los Alamos Due To Obama Budget Cuts

Last year in my post, "Rats in a Cage," I used that graphic metaphor to describe how as America's economy slowly implodes every interest group is going to fight like hell to try and protect its share of the remaining booty. What's more, this will be every bit as true for so-called "austerity" loving Republicans as it will be for Democrats, as demonstrated yet again in this story by a local New Mexico television station:

On Tuesday Heather Wilson, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, released a statement in response to a voluntary lay-off at Los Alamos National Labs.

According to the release, 400-800 jobs will be lost at Los Alamos as a result of President Obama’s budget cuts.

Oh boy, this ought to be good. Lay it on me:

“400-800 jobs lost at Los Alamos will affect a lot of families and businesses in Los Alamos and Rio Arriba County,” Wilson said. “I'm afraid it is only the beginning. I expect there will be hundreds more jobs lost unless we change direction.

“A little over a year ago, President Obama made a commitment to modernize our nuclear weapons complex in order to maintain a safe, reliable nuclear deterrent at lower levels of forces. That commitment included replacing a 60-year-old facility at Los Alamos for handling plutonium. In his new budget, however, President Obama has broken that commitment. And as a result, an estimated 1,000 jobs will be killed for 10 years in Los Alamos.

“One of the best ways to provide for our defense needs would be to reduce excessive red tape from Washington and move more of the budget into programs. The President's budget includes almost $500 million a year in National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) administrative costs. We would be better off as a nation if most of this money were moved to programs like CMRR at Los Alamos. Having helped create the NNSA as a semi-autonomous agency attached to DOE, it is now clear to me that the change did not take hold. The priority should be science — not paying for layers of bureaucracy.

“I believe we need a handful of people who will steward our nation’s defense even in a time of peace. New Mexico needs someone who will fight for our laboratories — someone who understands our state's unique contributions to national security. I intend to stand up for New Mexico and fight for our labs when I am elected to the U.S. Senate.”

Memo to New Mexico Republican Senate candidate Heather Wilson: Go Fuck Yourself (seems like I have been saying that a lot lately). You and your party are all about supposedly cutting government spending--just so long as it is someone ELSE'S government spending. The Department of Energy, in particular, has been a particular target of your party--one that Rick Perry said he wanted to eliminate on those rare occasions when he could actually remember what it was called.

Well, guess what? ALL government spending needs to be cut, but the first to go ought to be the completely unnecessary and wasteful defense war programs like the ones at your precious laboratories. If they want to stay in business, let them retool themselves and do something that actually benefits mankind for a change.


Bonus: "So long mom...I'm off to drop the bomb"