The Sequester

[JRK]

The Phony Sequestration Scare | ConservativeHQ.com

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - now we gonna go over the sequester cliff...

Is Obama overplaying sequester hand?
2/22/13 - Risks being perceived as a main actor in Washington’s dysfunction

President Barack Obama’s greatest adversary in the latest budget battle isn’t the Republican leadership in Congress — it’s his confidence in his own ability to force a win. He has been so certain of his campaign skills that he didn’t open a line of communication with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell until Thursday, a week before the spending ax hits. And when they did finally hear from Obama, the calls were perfunctory, with no request to step up negotiations or invitations to the White House.

That’s because Obama’s all-in on an outside strategy, doing just about everything other than holding serious talks with Republicans. In the last two days alone, he’s courted local TV anchors, called in a select group of White House correspondents to talk off the record, chatted up black broadcasters and announced plans to stump next week at Virginia’s Newport News Shipyard. Throughout, he’s talked in tough terms that signal little interest in compromise — or suggestion of backing down.

He’s navigating a thin line. Obama is convinced he’s got the upper hand on Republicans. Yet he can go only so long before he risks being perceived as a main actor in Washington’s dysfunction, threatening a core element of his political brand — and the fragile economic recovery he’s struggled to maintain. The calls placed Thursday to Boehner and McConnell were prompted, in part, by a White House desire to inoculate Obama from that exact criticism. So far, the White House has reason to feel good about where it stands. New polling shows Obama’s popularity sits at a three-year high. Americans would blame Republicans if a deal to avert the sequester isn’t reached. And even a majority of Republican voters back Obama’s call for both spending cuts and tax hikes.

But Obama’s been virtually absent from the legislative process — more so than during previous budget showdowns. And if the president wants his public offensive to work, he needs to keep attention focused on Republicans and why they refuse to consider new revenue as part of a deal to avert the $1.2 trillion sequester. “I will be honest with you right now,” Obama told SiriusXM host Joe Madison Thursday, “it is not clear to me that the Republicans are going to agree to turn this sequester off despite the fact that 75 percent of the American people agree with me in terms of the approach and disagree with them.”

Read more: Is President Obama overplaying sequestration hand? - Carrie Budoff Brown and Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com

See also:

Cantor: Obama offering 'false choices'
2/21/13 - House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Thursday that President Obama was offering “false choices” on the looming sequester, as Republicans try to cast the blame for the automatic spending cuts squarely on the White House.

Cantor said in a statement that the cuts set to go into effect on March 1 – which he agreed were neither smart nor fair – would only be implemented because Democrats refuse to restrain federal spending. The majority leader added that, after the recent “fiscal cliff” deal raised some $600 billion in revenue, it was time for Washington to move to the spending side of the ledger. “President Obama has said that unless he gets a second tax hike in eight weeks, he will be forced to let criminals loose on the streets, the meat at your grocery store won’t be inspected and emergency responders will be unable to do their jobs,” Cantor said in his statement. “These are false choices. We are faced with the negative effects of the sequester because Democrats have not been able to take even the smallest step towards controlling spending.”

Cantor’s statement comes just over a week before the $85 billion in cuts would start going into effect, and as Washington observers are increasingly pessimistic that a deal to avert the cuts can be reached by the end of the month. With Congress out of Washington this week, the president has gone on a public relations blitz in his own attempts to tag Republicans as responsible for the sequester. Obama held an event this week with first responders, who the White House said could face furlough under the sequester, and has sat for interviews with television reporters from across the country. The defense sector would be especially hard hit by the sequester, with the Pentagon telling lawmakers this week that it would be forced to furlough some 800,000 civilian workers if the cuts go into effect.

But more than a million federal workers in all could be affected, The Wall Street Journal reported this week – including food inspectors, airport security personnel employed by the Transportation Security Administration and congressional aides. Cantor said in his statement that – instead of potentially harming national security and border and crime patrol – Obama should instead look to cut wasteful spending like federally-sponsored smoking machines and grants given to foreign countries by the Environmental Protection Agency. “For nearly a year, the president and Senate Democrats have chosen to accept these harmful effects rather than propose any spending cuts to avert the sequester, and help get our fiscal house in order,” the majority leader said. Cantor’s office released a list of what it called wasteful spending programs this week, including a $47,000 smoking machine.

Read more: Cantor: Obama offering 'false choices' - The Hill's On The Money

 

[Rozman]

The Sunday shows today will really follow the WH's push on placing the blame on the GOP.
I'm sure all the shows got the memo from Axelrod and Jarrett.

 

[Katzndogz]

The question is really can obama manipulate the sequester enough so that his dire predictions come true. He can't do anything about police, firefighters or school teachers not directly paid from the federal government. Those jobs are all subject to local control. He can close airports, fire TSA agents, and cause some damage. Whether the low intelligence public will realize that he's doing it deliberately or not will be the question.

 

[Jroc]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5xJZEY3oz0&playnext=1&list=PL21443BBF82FE5F87&feature=results_video]The End of America....The Cloward-Piven Strategy. - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Trajan]

Does anyone buy into Obama's BS on this? He is claiming that the entire economy will collapse if 80 billion is cut from the federal spending.

The congress just spent almost that much on Sandy relief.

This is just more scare tactic rhetoric by the marxist kenyan.

If the sequester kicks in, no one will feel it--no one. If anyone thinks there is not 10% fat in the DOD budget then I have some underwater investment property to sell you in the swamp.

Perhaps you don't understand that the U.S. economy, since Ronald Reagan was elected, has been largely supported by federal deficit spending. I have no doubt at all that a severe recession will revisit us if we have the sequester.

Unfortunately, I think that's exactly what it will take to get these stupid fucking Republicans in Congress to think beyond "deficit reduction."

that is due to fiat money, the gold standard going away etc. it was going to happen no matter what once the genie was out of the bottle.

oh and if a 3% reduction is a recession starter, then why did we have -.1% gdp in q4? s so any q1 number in negative territory will constitute a recession and thats the gop's fault?

of course its not the stupid fucking gop but the stupid fucking dems who cannot even cut 56K for a cowboy poetry festival who need to get serious

 

[JRK]

AGAIN the Democrats agree.. White House came up with the idea first!!! After All if the NYT says it it MUST BE TRUE RIGHT!!!
Q. Whose idea was it?

A. That is in dispute. Republicans say the White House came up with the idea. Democrats agree, to a point.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/us/politics/questions-and-answers-about-the-sequester.html?_r=0

At 2:30 p.m. [White House Office of Management Director Jack] Lew and [White House Director of legislative affairs Rob] Nabors went to the Senate to meet with [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid and his chief of staff, David Krone.
“We have an idea for the trigger,” Lew said.
“What’s the idea?” Reid asked skeptically.
“Sequestration.”

In typical CON$ervoFascist fashion you edited the NY Times quote leaving this out, "But Democrats explain that the president proposed a mix of automatic tax increases and domestic cuts.

Republicans rejected that mix and said they would instead accept another idea they had traditionally opposed: military cuts. Regardless, the Budget Control Act, including the cuts, passed on a bipartisan vote that included almost all Republican leaders, and President Obama signed it."

And your other quote from the discredited Bob Woodward you left out the date, July 27, 2011 because Boner had HIS sequester posted on his website TWO days earlier.

Boner and the CON$ervoFascist Brotherhood own the sequester.

Two-Step Approach to Hold President Obama Accountable | Speaker.gov

CAPS TO CONTROL FUTURE SPENDING
The framework imposes spending caps that would establish clear limits on future spending and serve as a barrier against government expansion while the economy grows. Failure to remain below these caps will trigger automatic across-the-board cuts (otherwise known as sequestration). This is the same mechanism used in the 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.
John Boehner, July 25, 2011

to start with there are no cuts
It is a perfect example as to how the left is lying to you
the rate of growth is slowed
The Phony Sequestration Scare | ConservativeHQ.com

No less important
ubmitted by Barack Obama
Submitted to 112th Congress
Passed
November 18, 2011 (Pub.L. 112-55)

December 23, 2011 (Pub.L. 112-74 and Pub.L. 112-77)
Total revenue $2.627 trillion (requested)
$2.469 trillion (enacted)
Total expenditures $3.729 trillion (requested)
$3.796 trillion (enacted)
Deficit $1.101 trillion (requested)
$1.327 trillion (enacted
2012 budget
2012 United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3.7 trillion
last GOP budget

Submitted by George W. Bush
Submitted to 109th Congress
Total revenue $2.57 trillion
Total expenditures $2.73 trillion
Deficit $161 billion
Debt $8.95 trillion
2007 budget, 1 trillion dollars less than 2012
explain to me how we could pay our bills and fund the Iraq war, (an expense that is now gone and by that actually adds another 150 billion in spending), we could pay our bills in 07 and yet not run the govt in 2012 with another 1.2 trillion?
2007 United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[thereisnospoon]

It's all politics and Obama's ego here.
Obama wants what he wants and he will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. If that means draconian measures to inflict the most pain, so be it.
Look people, the numbers do not add up. The sequester is just 2% of the entire projected expenditures of $3.729 trillion....