So, what happens when you strike down broad portions of a law for partisan reasons? What happens when you allow corporations to spend unlimited money on the election of candidates? What happens when that corporate money flows like a river? And what happens when that money enables the election of a generation of inbred, backwoods, illiterate politicians who spend all day screeching about shuttin' down the gov'ment and the coloreds (bycracky).
What happens when those backwoods politicians -- the politicians you enabled -- gum up the federal government so badly many departments cease to adequately function, including yours? Well . . . apparently . . . you write Congress a report in which you wax incoherently about Frank Capra and then bitch for fourteen pages about the Sequester.
Scribd has the full report because the Supreme Court's servers have crashed (because of course they have).
Says Chief Justice Roberts:
By its own initiative, the Judiciary had already achieved significant cost reductions when the sequester provisions of the Budget Control Act of 2011 went into effect on March 1, 2013. The five percent across-the-board sequestration cut reduced Judiciary funding by nearly $350 million in fiscal year 2013 a reduction on top of the cost savings that the courts had already achieved. The impact of the sequester was more significant on the courts than elsewhere in the government, because virtually all of their core functions are constitutionally and statutorily required. Unlike most Executive Branch agencies, the courts do not have discretionary programs they can eliminate or postpone in response to budget cuts. The courts must resolve all criminal, civil, and bankruptcy cases that fall within their jurisdiction, often under tight time constraints. And because many of the Judiciary’s expenditures, such as rent and judicial salaries, must be paid regardless of sequestration, the five percent cut that was intended to apply “across-the-board” translated into even larger cuts in discretionary components of the Judiciary’s budget.
This would all be so funny if it wasn't so sad.
Here's the NY Times' coverage: Budget Cuts Imperil Federal Court System, Roberts Says
Edit: I removed the word "schadenfreude" from the title because, upon reflection, I don't find any joy in the fact that our federal judiciary is on the verge of being crippled by the Sequester.