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A depressed Florida man shot his wife and two children before killing himself after closing his hot air balloon business and facing losing his job as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector because of automatic budget cuts known as "sequestration."

A source told CBS News that 45-year-old Carlos Zuniga was depressed in the weeks before he shot his wife 43-year-old wife, Michelle, his 14-year-old daughter, Lauren, and his 11-year-old son, Stefan. Carlos Zuniga then killed himself.

Stefan Zuniga died at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center on Thursday morning. Both the wife and the daughter were in critical condition.

According to The Miami Herald, Carlos Zuniga was in the process of shutting down Winds Aloft Aviation Inc., a hot air balloon business that he had started with this wife in 2005. He had recently taken a job as a safety inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration. But the FAA is expected to be forced to furlough a "vast majority" of it's employees because of automatic budget cuts in the so-called "sequester" if Congress does not act quickly.

"FAA is going to face a cut of roughly $600 million under sequester," Office of Management and Budget controller Danny Werfel told a Senate committee last week. "A vast majority of their 47,000 employees will be furloughed for one day per pay period for the rest of the year, and, as importantly, this is going to reduce air traffic levels across the country, causing delays and disruptions for all travelers."

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has also notified senators that allowing the automatic cuts "would force the FAA to undergo an immediate retrenchment of core functions."

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama warned that there would be stark consequences if Congress allowed the automatic cuts to take place.

"These cuts are not smart," Obama said on Tuesday. "They are not fair. They will hurt our economy. They will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls. This is not an abstraction -- people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again."

Former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour on Tuesday told Fox Business that "I hope and believe that Republicans will allow the sequestration to go into effect, so that we can start down a path of trying to get control of spending and reduce the deficit."

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January 12, 2010 C-SPAN

Senior U.S. lawmakers joined visitors at the 2010 North American International Auto Show which opened in Detroit on Monday.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the visiting lawmakers had seen optimism of the U.S. auto industry leadership.

"What we saw here today was vibrant and optimistic leadership to leap over the competition and keep America No. 1," Pelosi told a press conference.

"Survival of the (auto) industry is central to our strong industrial, technological, and manufacturing base in our country. That industrial base is central to our national security," she said.

Amid the economic crisis that witnessed the fall of U.S. auto making giants Ford, GM and Chrysler, the U.S. government and Congress have approved billions of dollars to bail out the industry.

Other officials visiting the auto show on the opening day were House Majority leader Steny Hoyer, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

The Detroit auto show has drawn more than 700 motor vehicles designed by 61 automakers from across the world. From xinhuanet

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From The Rachel Maddow Show Oct. 7, 2009. Yet another shoe drops on Sen. John Ensign. We just had the news on Tom Coburn apparently negotiating bribes for Sen. Ensign, and now this.

MADDOW: We begin with a follow up to Sen. John Ensign’s failed attempt to avoid the media at all costs. You know that Sen. Ensign revealed back in June that he had had an affair with a campaign staffer. A campaign staffer who was married to a man named Doug Hampton. Doug Hampton worked in Sen. Ensign’s senate office. Here was the failed media avoidance indecent.

[…]

“I never talked to Doug Hampton about any of that stuff.” The question was Sen. Ensign did you ever meet with Doug Hampton after you got him a lobbying job. “No, I never met with Doug Hampton about any of that stuff.”

What you just saw was CNN’s Dana Bash and her producer confronting John Ensign outside his office in Washington D.C. yesterday. They’re trying to ask the senator this. What was your involvement with Doug Hampton after you convinced companies to hire him as a lobbyist? It’s an important question because former staffers are required by law to wait a year before lobbying their old bosses.

And the answer that Ensign gave in this interview was zilch, nada, none. He said he had no contact with Doug Hampton on any lobbying matters.

[…]

“I never met with him on any of that lobbying stuff.” Well the New York Times today looked into the veracity of this statement and they found an uh-oh.

Interviews and documents, however, show that Mr. Ensign had lunch in the Senate dining room in March with Mr. Hampton and executives from Allegiant Air to discuss aviation issues. That lunch took place on the same day that the airline executives, in a meeting arranged by Mr. Ensign, spoke with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood about a dispute with a foreign carrier and other issues.

Allegiant Air being one of Mr. Hampton’s clients on whose behalf he lobbied.

BASH: Is there anything else that you... are you considering resigning?

ENSIGN: I am focused on doing my work. I'm going to continue to focus on doing my work.

MADDOW: And so too will everyone else senator-- We will all be focusing on your work. Particularly the work we now think you did with your mistress’ husband/former staffer/illegal lobbyist.