Barack plays "budget sequester chicken"....
As Roll Call reports that Senate negotiators "are bracing for the Obama administration to ratchet up the pressure by front-loading the effects of the sequester during the month of March" WaPo superstar Bob Woodward unmasks the lies told by the president & his top aides, as to who proposed the sequester:
First, months of White House dissembling further eroded any semblance of trust between Obama and congressional Republicans. (The Republicans are by no means blameless and have had their own episodes of denial and bald-faced message management.)
Second, [former WH chief of staff, now Treasury Secretary-designate] Lew testified during his confirmation hearing that the Republicans would not go along with new revenue in the portion of the deficit-reduction plan that became the sequester. Reinforcing Lew’s point, a senior White House official said Friday, “The sequester was an option we were forced to take because the Republicans would not do tax increases.”
In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.
So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.
The WSJ editors explain how President Obama is using the "Washington Monument ploy" to pressure the GOP to give in to higher taxes and impose far fewer spending cuts:
"If Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place," he moaned, "it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will eviscerate job creating investments in education and energy and medical research." His parade of horribles went on for several minutes. All of this wreckage from a 5% cut to domestic agencies and a 7% cut to the military.
Americans need to understand that Mr. Obama is threatening that if he doesn't get what he wants, he's ready to inflict maximum pain on everybody else. He won't force government agencies to shave spending on travel and conferences and excessive pay and staffing. He won't demand that agencies cut the lowest priority spending as any half-competent middle manager would.
It's the old ploy to stir public support for all government spending by shutting down vital services first. Voters should scoff at the idea that a $3.6 trillion government can't save one nickel of every dollar that agencies spend. The $85 billion in savings is a mere 2.3% of total spending. The agencies that the White House says can't save 5% received an average increase in their budgets of 17% in the previous five years—not counting their $276 billion stimulus bonus.
Actually, the Congressional Budget Office pegs the total FY2014 sequester cuts as only $44 billion ($35B discretionary + $9B mandatory programs). The $85B is "budget authority" that can be exercised, but might not be carried out; the $44B represents actual reductions that must be implemented.
That the sequester was Obama's idea is made clear in John Boehner's account of the 2011 debt negotiations:
During the summer of 2011, as Washington worked toward a plan to reduce the deficit to allow for an increase in the federal debt limit, President Obama and I very nearly came to a historic agreement. Unfortunately our deal fell apart at the last minute when the president demanded an extra $400 billion in new tax revenue—50% more than we had shaken hands on just days before.
It was a disappointing decision by the president, but with just days until a breach of the debt limit, a solution was still required—and fast. I immediately got together with Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to forge a bipartisan congressional plan. It would be called the Budget Control Act.
The plan called for immediate caps on discretionary spending (to save $917 billion) and the creation of a special House-Senate "super committee" to find an additional $1.2 trillion in savings. The deal also included a simple but powerful mechanism to ensure that the committee met its deficit-reduction target: If it didn't, the debt limit would not be increased again in a few months.
But President Obama was determined not to face another debt-limit increase before his re-election campaign. Having just blown up one deal, the president scuttled this bipartisan, bicameral agreement. His solution? A sequester.
With the debt limit set to be hit in a matter of hours, Republicans and Democrats in Congress reluctantly accepted the president's demand for the sequester, and a revised version of the Budget Control Act was passed on a bipartisan basis.
Bottom Line. Obama calculates that if he splits the GOP he wins the House back in 2014, holds the Senate and can then work his governing will for his final two years. His transformation project will gather momentum, and become deeply embedded in the government's laws & structure. It then would almost certainly be irreversible for decades.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Economy, Conservative Politics
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