Just in case you forgot about the draconian cuts in federal spending, referred to as the sequestration (and by “cuts” I mean a reduction in the rate of increase year to year), AND the ongoing fight over a continuing resolution to fund the government past March, the president wants you to know about all the hardships YOU, the American public, are going to feel.

Lay-offs, funding cuts and even the White House tours have been axed! Thankfully, presidential golf outings have been unaffected by the fiscal crisis.

Now, we learn of a memo circulated to ticket holders of the 135th Annual White House Easter Egg Roll threating its existence if Congress doesn’t agree to more spending. I mean, you’ve got to make hard choices, right?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

The resulting backlash was swift and severe as well it should be. To hold hostage an event for children on the White House lawn Easter weekend by claiming you have run out of money, while at the same time announcing the president and First Family’s latest vacation plans, smacks of hypocrisy at the highest levels. Plus, it flat out isn’t true and the White House can no longer cry “wolf,” nobody believes them anymore.

This is no doubt the reason for the backtracking Tuesday as the White House contradicted the letter it sent out saying the Easter Egg Roll would go on as planned. See what happens when you openly lie and attempt to deceive? The American people are much smarter than this White House thinks.

But wait, it gets worse.

By now you’ve heard of the horrible accident at a Marine training facility in Nevada that claimed the lives of seven Marines and injured many more. While the investigation is ongoing, it appears that a mortar round exploded as it was being moved prior to a live-fire exercise. A tragedy by every measure. But surely, you can’t blame this on lack of government spending. Can you?

Democrat and Senate Leader Harry Reid can, and he can do so spectacularly.

“We don’t know exactly what happened, but we know it was a violent explosion,” Reid said in the Senate chambers on Tuesday. “It’s very important we continue training our military. So important. But one of the things in sequester is we cut back on training and maintenance. That’s the way sequester was written.”

“It’s just not appropriate, Mr. President, that our military can’t train and do the maintenance necessary,” Reid continued. “With the sequester, it’s going to cut this stuff back.”

Besides the obvious irony of a Democrat calling for more defense spending, is the outright gall it takes for Sen. Reid to blame the deaths of seven Marines on a miniscule cut in federal spending and the implication that these Marines were somehow undertrained over the past three weeks of sequestration and that it directly led to their deaths.

Not surprisingly, the Marine Corps denied that any budget cuts would cause Marines to operate in an unsafe manner, but don’t try telling that to members of Congress like Harry Reid.

If you wake up every morning with the belief that every dime of government spending is needed, necessary and the only thing holding the fabric of our society together, of COURSE you believe that any and all tragedies are a direct result of a cut or lack of government spending.

Sen. Reid, you are offensive, disgusting and dishonorable on a variety of levels and I hope the people of Nevada are as ashamed of you as the rest of us are.