A Bonita Springs jazz show won’t go on due to budget cuts related to the federal sequester.
The Riverside Jazz music festival was slated for April 9 at Riverside Park, with the U.S. Army’s Jazz Ambassadors — America’s Big Band — headlining.
But the Department of Defense suspended all military band travel in early March because of budgetary uncertainty, meaning the Jazz Ambassadors won’t be visiting Southwest Florida after all.
“It’s just the most unpatriotic thing that has ever occurred to me in my 62 years of living, to have someone pull the rug out from under us like that,” said Mike Bode, a Vietnam veteran and music lover who was putting on the show.
While much of the focus of the sequester has been on cutbacks to national defense, airport operations and schools, the public is starting to see the effects in less high-profile areas.
In addition to the canceled band tours, spending cuts have grounded the Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbird flying teams, according to media reports. Visitors to national parks are likely to see fewer workers, furloughed park police and shuttered visitor centers as part of the sequester cuts, which went into effect March 1.
Bode said he’s been working on the jazz show since January 2012 when he learned the Ambassadors, who play for free, were touring this part of the country. He contacted a band representative and began putting the pieces in place.
However, on March 8, he received a call from a band representative notifying him of the cancellation.
“I almost wrecked my truck. To be honest with you, I was dumbfounded and I was speechless,” Bode said. “I had just confirmed with my printer to run 1,000 posters and 1,000 fliers. Things were in the works because we were a month out.”
Bode said he tried to find a replacement headliner that would play on the cheap, but came up empty. He compared plugging one of the other scheduled acts into the Ambassadors’ headliner slot to starting a high school quarterback in the NFL.
On Monday, Bode officially announced the show was over and started meeting with sponsors to return their money.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Sgt. Adam Goetz, the Jazz Ambassadors’ tour coordinator, who spoke highly of Bode’s work. “We’ve worked for a long time toward these concerts, which take the Army story to the American public. And there’s tremendous value in this. Now we’re not able to fulfill that mission.”
Bode said the canceled band tours are an “affront to what this nation stands for.”
“This is our band,” he said. “This band belongs to the United States of America.”
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Comments » 31
leneggs writes:
you can thank your republican leaders for this.
Trinsan writes:
I am glad to see our Government spending less money ... it's that much LESS we have to borrow from CHINA. Thank whomever you like, less spending of money you DON'T have is always a GOOD thing!
Revenge_is_BEST_Served_COLD writes:
I agree!
BillBrasky writes:
I agree our government needs to tighten its belt and get a handle on runaway spending. Most importantly is to root out corruption and graft in our defense industry that is a multi billion dollar industry in itself. Eliminating all the hands in the trough and kickbacks that is the defense industry is the only way out of our debt created by decades of unlimited runaway defense spending.
16.5 Trillion in debt
There are only so many band performances we can cancel. We need to address the actual issue.
THE_Aquaman writes:
Thank you Republicans :) save the money
SigSauer writes:
Maybe your God, Obama, could have Tiger Woods play a few songs.... The budget seems to be unlimited for his desires.
Double_nickels writes:
Absolutely less spending is in order, but meanwhile the government is bleeding BILLIONS of $$ from IRS identity theft refunds every year. It's a no brainer that this needs fixing. Hey IRS, stop sending checks to crooks!
Liblover writes:
This is great. But I think they should have closed the bases in Germany and Japan and Korea first and kept the music a little longer. Oh yeah and cut our nuclear arsenal at least in half so we can only blow up the world 20 times instead of 40 and let the Blue Angels fly over Ft. Meyers Beach once in a while, that's cool.
Ruskin writes:
Credit cards have limits, families have budgets. Why is the government any different?
Good job RepubliCANs.
Kahunna writes:
I wonder how may concerts we could have with the 4 million we spent on Obama's christmas vacation.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-...
And that doesn't include the additional security cost
Beachglow writes:
Agreed. Besides they're living on credit, and we all know where that takes you once you get in over your head. They need to cut a lot more than the "band," starting with Washington, DC. Let's take Obama's ability to use Air Force One away from him for a while. He uses it for his own personal use too much. That would save milions a month.
Naplestango writes:
I wonder what the two popes think of this unpatriotic debacle???
Ruskin writes:
Can the USA be far behind?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles...
sc282 writes:
I would be more upset if this was a Blues or RocknRoll festival, I do like jazz, but we don't get good music in this area very often.
Probably not a concert I would attend anyway.
I'm sure the elderly that live close by will be happy.
angrytxpyr writes:
Hey now just a DOG GONE MINUTE!!!
We voted for the IDIOTS in the White House and Congress, it was their idea to do this "sequester" thingy.
The reality is the mess we are in now started in the '70s when someone in DC came up with the IDIOTIC idea to do away with the Gold Standard. Politicians from both parties and Bureaucrats with their own get rich on the public's dime schemes have run up the Bank-O-China credit card to a point where the USA owes more than its worth. Yeh folks we are upside down in our own country and the guy in the White House along with a bunch in Congress are playing games with our mortgage.
If O-Bumble and the Congress think its just Ducky to cut stuff like this instead of their own salary and benefits along with some other really really wasteful spending, YUP that includes the high energy spending spree of the first family then I guess that's what we wanted because we voted for him. TWICE!!!!
Get a gripe on it ya all its all done for the supposed Liberal Road show. There is no real reason the show can't go on other than O-Bumble didn't get his way and he his puppets are throwing a tantrum.
Hope & Change!!! Yup and a lesson learned. Be careful what you wish for!!! Chances are you ain't gonna like what ya get!!!
itmattershere writes:
Hope you feel the same about all the other Presidents before Obama and there lavish spending trips? I'm glad they cut this concert, less traffic on Old 41. Less Government spending is fine with me. Dog eat dog world!
bigloo writes:
Next to be cut should be the freebies given at taxpayer expense to the lazy, able-bodied welfare recipients who would rather sit on their fat a--es all day and milk the system. Regardless of political party, if the good, hard working American citizens want to see our country get back on its feet they need to get out and vote the entitlement-loving goldbrickers out of office and the sooner the better!
wrightconnection writes:
Why hasn't Congress taken a pay cut? It's high time the people vote against the lifelong salaries these crooks get after serving one term in office. They don't pay into the social security program and they have their own insurance as well. No Obama health care for those guys! Think of the money that would save. Let's trim the unconstitutional fat!
garyOfTheGulf writes:
Thank you Congress!! Wake up its all of them against use.. Only the Sheep are to stupid to figure this out!! Wake up!!
garyOfTheGulf writes:
They need to cut Congressional travel and who is in Rome on vacation.. Biden. How much did that cost us. Congress lives in a glass house.. Lets throw bricks!!!
Column18 writes:
Nice try.
Obama proposed sequester. It is his.
Column18 writes:
No, the ruling class never suffers.
The game is to direct it to the most political gain.
Not Obama's 13 year old's spring break that required 25 secret service and 2 planes for her and her 12 friends last year; not the $1.4 Billion annual expense of the Obama family's reign.
KennyR (Inactive) writes:
Life post-sequester is really tough. How are we going to continue living???
Chester writes:
Should taxpayers be paying for this stuff anyway? This just shows how out of whack this country is on government spending! More sequesters, please!
tacony19 writes:
If conservative republican chickenhawks stopped trying to cram Democracy down every tribal chieftans throat (Iraq,Afghanistan),and the liberal Democrat do-gooders stopped using our military as the world's police force (Serbia, Vietnam ) there might be a few bucks left over for the citizens here. But those at the top know that war is good business; for those at the top...
Magic81 writes:
What is amazing is that people expect a President--having perhaps the job with the most stress related decisions to be faced on a daily basis--will hold it against him every time he dares to leave the Oval Office and spend time with his wife and family. And the same people who level that criticism may well be the ones who say "Where are the parents"?? Isn't it a positive gesture to put family first once in a while?? especially with 2 daughters going through their teen years?? As the nurse said to me at the moment our daughter was born-"Here she is--for the next 18 years, she's yours". The President's daughters will be 18 before he knows it.
And I would say that about ANY President--but since the topic was raised, I see that some critics are selective in their targets, and choose not to put things in proper perspective--we see this all the time here in regards to THIS president...BUT...
"Calls to several Presidential libraries reveal that President Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was on vacation more — 1,020 days — than any U.S. President since Herbert Hoover and possibly more than any other President in history."
Let's be fair here--the National Debt was doubling while Bush was vacationing--did anyone hear any critics about the President's vacations then??
Magic81 writes:
False analogies. Do you really not see the difference between a person's individual credit card and the financial responsibilities of an entire nation?? with international implications and developments beyond the control of any President??
If your analogy were to be accepted, FDR and the nation could not have responded to the threats posed by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
It's OK to criticize spending and look for reasonable cuts--we all want that--but to compare it to my Visa card??? Traditional economic practices BEFORE REAGAN was for the government to engage in deficit spending in times of economic downturns---but it also believed in raising revenue during the good times--like a family "saving for a rainy day"--Voodoo economics killed that unreasonable concept, which is so much like the economic advice one hears all the time.
Yeah--to answer your question, the Government IS "a little different"--whether we like it or not
THE_Aquaman writes:
89 billion to the Muslim brutherhood... Who has called for the destruction of America.
Alla Clark bar comrad.
GITMO?
Revenge_is_BEST_Served_COLD writes:
Why are you such an idiot? Bush spent over 1000 days on vacation during his term and that wasn't at the White House - so he was flying everywhere he went. Try making an intelligent statement once in a while.
Column18 writes:
Previous commentor writes: "Why are you such an idiot? Bush spent over 1000 days on vacation during his term and that wasn't at the White House - so he was flying everywhere he went. Try making an intelligent statement once in a while."
Poor obama supporters, all they can do is name call.
BonitaSprings1 writes:
It's the local, state, fed spending stupid.
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