Posted on 02/08/2013 9:12:41 AM PST by SkyPilot
Republicans open to letting billions in sequester cuts go through figure they can blame the president if the economy goes south.
But Democrats are betting they can shift that blame right back to the GOP.
They’re so confident, in fact, that they’re already eyeing at least 10 Republican-held seats with strong military connections from Florida to California to target in 2014, after sequester cuts have trickled down to local bases where jobs are lost and voters notice.
“Republicans who are unwilling to compromise, unwilling to find solutions and are responsible for cuts to defense and jobs in their districts are going to find an unwelcome reception from voters,” said Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The Republicans can't say they weren't warned: The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that sequestration could cost 1 million jobs and send the country into another recession.
If anyone should know about sequestration politics, it’d be the Republicans.
Mitt Romney warned about the devastating job losses from sequestration as he toured 2012 battleground states. But the campaign last year revolved around theoretical spending cuts.
Say sequestration kicks in on March 1: then lawmakers are suddenly in a much different place, reacting to very real reductions in government services the public relies on, as well as a rippling of layoffs in the private sector.
President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner both said this week they’d like to avoid sequestration, but they are worlds apart in how to address it and have shown no signs that negotiations will resume to end it. Proposals bouncing around Capitol Hill to delay the cuts have yet to build a critical majority and House and Senate leaders are still gaming out whether votes will come up on any of them.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Spend spend spend
Tax tax tax
Spend spend spend
owebama is the original proponent of sequestration, therefore if it happens it is the republicrats’ fault.
Well, if Politico says it is a time bomb for the GOP, by all means, we should follow their advice.
/s
The entire problem is the ineffectiveness of the republicans as politicians.
Fight fire with fire.
No mention that the Sequester was a White House idea. The GOP needs to point this out every time they have a chance.
Uhhh, as I recall, sequestration WAS the compromise. A compromise initiated and pushed for by OBAMA! And Obama has not suggested any alternative cuts to substitute for the sequestration cuts. Barky OWNS this.
agree- play the lefts game against them and the left is done...
The sad reality is the majority of the American public does not want spending cuts. We are no different than Europe at this point. The population is far more secular, socialist and selfish than it used to be, and it is very hard for Republicans to oppose the Santa Claus president and his party. Oh sure, people will say the budget should be cut, but they don’t want anything cut that could in any way effect them. This is real problem, the public is being told by the education, media and entertainment establishments that big government is good, that it works, and that debt doesn’t matter - and they believe it. The reasons the GOP typically back down on these issues is that the public simply isn’t with them.
No mention that the Sequester was a White House idea. The GOP needs to point this out every time they have a chance.
Also no mention that Obama himself signed the sequester cuts into law either.
Simple, “the President has to identify the cuts he wants to make. We already gave him his revenue.”
Then walk away.
You know that and I know that, but the low information voters will never know it because of the complicit MSM. The GOP has masterfully been triangulated into a corner. Even if the GOP leadership had cojones, there is no way they can win this public relations battle. Sequestration will cost jobs and likely lead to recession, but it is the only way I see that a dent in future budget growth can be made. It may be better to face the pain and suffering of a collapse now rather than later.
Of course the GOP will get the blame. The “media” direct the low-info sheeple to blame Repubs, and they’ll do it on cue.
Sequestration was Obama’s idea. The msm won’t ever point that out however, as they will carry water for their Savior one more time.
Instead of blame, how about the GOP getting credit for the savings. With a budget of around 700 billion, a 50 billion dollar cut is not going to cause the place to close down. Of course, to exert pressure, they will initially threaten to lay off everyone, scrap aircraft carriers, ground air wings, and disband army divisions. Only as a last resort will they actually look at cutting a small amount of non essential spending. That is the bureaucratic way.
Get used to calling it “Obama’s sequestration”. He was the creator after all even though the MSM would have you to believe the GOP was responsible.
As usual, Obama and the DemocRATs play 3-dimensional chess while the hapless Republicans play Tiddly Winks and wonder why they can’t get a break.
Morons like Boehner and McConnell should be thrown out on their asses!
One would think that a $50B cut in a $700B budget could be done in a way that doesn’t cause massive turmoil by cutting non-essential spending. But, this sequestration doesn’t work that way. The law says all elements of the budget take the same hit. Even if you could identify the non-essential spending, you can take the cut only in those elements.
The other problem is that this 10% cut equates to a 20% cut. The whole cut isn’t spread out across the whole year. It only affects the last six months.
Suppose you’re an agency with a 100 employees. You could have cut 10 at the beginning of the year, but the administration wouldn’t allow that because those cuts would have been a month before the election. Now the same agency has to cut 20 people...
Even though one could argue that federal employees are overpaid and underworked, this still means the GOP will have to justify a lot of lost jobs.
I was a vet, I know that in late July and early aug departments on every base are spending on things to back up fill up or make life more comfortable. We got new dorm furniture. Come on it is time to cut back for real in every darn department - that would be a winner for republicans, but they want to spend!!
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