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The Washington Post's Bob Woodward tells POLITICO Playbook that the White House is muddling the facts on the sequester - "a classic case of distortion and confusion." **SNIP** "The White House pushback is a classic case of distortion and confusion," Woodward said in an email to Playbook. "We unfortunately have seen this too often in recent presidential history... I do not think it is willful. They are just mixed up, surprisingly so."

Nothing new here, which is the most depressing part. Scroll halfway down the page at Pew and you'll find a table tracking shifts in public opinion on various programs over the last four years. There are noticeable jumps in support for cuts from 2009 to 2011 as America got a snoutful of Obamanomics, but we've leveled off since then — and in not a single category of the 17 tested is there 50 percent in favor of decreasing spending. In fact, in only three of those 17 categories (foreign aid, unemployment aid, and the State Department) is there more support...

A group of 18 former military and national security officials wrote to President Barack Obama on Friday urging the administration to cancel plans for further cuts in United States nuclear warheads, warning that new arms reductions would undermine U.S. security. The ex-officials, including two former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated in the letter to Obama that North Korea’s recent underground nuclear test, and concerns about growing Pyongyang-Tehran nuclear arms cooperation, undermines any further disarmament sought by the president. “In our professional judgment, born of decades of experience with national security policy and practice, America’s ‘triad’ of nuclear-armed...

57 Terrible Consequences Of The Sequester By CHRIS GOOD (@c_good) February 21, 2013 If the heads of 20 federal agencies are to be believed, disastrous consequences await if President Obama and Congress fail to reach a budget deal, triggering the automatic, across-the-board cuts known as "sequestration." Those cuts are slated to begin March 1, and earlier this month, the Senate Appropriations Committee asked agency heads to explain what would happen in such a scenario. In separate letters to Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., they warned of terrible things: Greater risk of wildfires, fewer OSHA inspections and a risk of more...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is speaking out against a cut in congressional pay because she says it will undermine the dignity of their positions. "I think we should respect the work we do," Pelosi said. "I think it's necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded."

The Senate's top Republican predicted on Tuesday that automatic spending cuts will take effect on March 1 as scheduled. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he did not expect some last-minute deal to materialize that would avert the cuts, known in budget jargon as a "sequester." "Read my lips: I'm not interested in an 11th-hour negotiation," McConnell told reporters. "It's pretty clear to me that the sequester's going to go into effect," McConnell said. "I have seen no evidence that the House plans to act on this matter before the end of the month." The across-the-board cuts were set in...

THE CAPITOL: With the Obama Pentagon excoriating federal lawmakers for their apparent inability to avoid sequestration or to pass a defense spending bill, and the Navy going down to one carrier in the Persian Gulf for lack of funds, GOP lawmakers today defended the latest Republican proposal to stop the automatic budget cuts. It isn't a mere rehash of a very similar one that fizzled last year, GOP leaders insisted when AOL Defense raised the question at a press conference in the Capitol this afternoon -- although their own staff seem to disagree (click here to read why).The difference...

The Pentagon will have to cut the size of U.S. military forces for the second time in as many years if across-the-board spending reductions of $470 billion over 10 years take effect March 1, the top U.S. military officer said on Saturday. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said about a third of the cuts would have to come from forces, with the remaining two-thirds taken from spending on modernization, compensation and readiness. He noted that the Army had begun to shrink last year toward 490,000 from a high of 570,000, a result of efforts...

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...

The drag to Gross Domestic Product caused by cuts in defense spending in the fourth quarter of 2012 could be just the beginning of a long, painful process, according to economic experts. GDP fell by 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, the first such negative growth since 2009 and an economic wet blanket after a 3.1 percent increase in the previous quarter. A 22 percent drop in government defense spending was blamed for much of the decline. The fourth-quarter drop came as those in the Pentagon waited to see if Congress would reach a deal to avoid sequestration by the...

Gov. Mark Dayton says in his State of the State speech that past state income tax cuts are partly to blame for chronic budget problems in Minnesota and that political leaders cannot afford to keep delaying difficult tax and spending decisions. Dayton is delivering the annual speech Wednesday night in the state House chamber. He says in advance excerpts provided by his office that income tax cuts in the late '90s were followed by a decade where Minnesota's economy fared worse than the nation as a whole and most other states. The speech is largely a pitch for Dayton's proposal...

n 2012, Republicans ran against the massive cuts to defense that might occur in early 2013 under the congressionally mandated budget sequester. At an Oct. 23 presidential debate, President Obama responded that his opponent, Mitt Romney, was blowing the risk out of proportion: The cuts, he said, “will not happen.” Well, those cuts are now scheduled to take effect on March 1 — and, by the look of things, they will. The GOP has changed its tune; the Republican majority in the House seems content to let them happen. Meanwhile, President Obama, whose defense secretary has warned in the direst...

The U.S. economy unexpectedly shrank from October through December for the first time since 2009, hurt by the biggest cut in defense spending in 40 years, fewer exports and sluggish growth in company stockpiles. The drop occurred despite stronger consumer spending and business investment. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that the economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter. That was a sharp slowdown from the 3.1 percent growth rate in the July-September quarter. Economists said the drop in gross domestic product wasn't as bleak as it looked. The weakness was mainly the result of...

Would you like to save $20,000 this year? Of course you would. Here’s how: Plan a month-long vacation to Disneyland, and budget $20,000 for the trip. Then don’t go. Presto! You just “cut” your family budget by 20 grand. This sounds absurd—because it is. Yet that is precisely how Washington operates. A couple of weeks ago, President Obama claimed on national TV that “I cut spending by over a trillion dollars in 2011.” But as many people quickly pointed out, in fiscal 2011 federal spending rose from $3.4 trillion to $3.6 trillion. Nevertheless, the President repeated the claim on Jan....

“Among the most difficult challenges facing the Air Force is the need to modernize,” writes Michael Donley, the Secretary of the Air Force. Despite major engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and Libya since the end of the Cold War, the Air Force currently operates the oldest fleet it has ever had. Sadly, sequestration threatens the future of modernization plans, drives up operations and maintenance costs, and prevents the United States from building the Air Force that the country needs in the future. The Air Force fleet is often described as “geriatric” or “decrepit.” It is becoming inadequate to support U.S....

While the Washington Post reports this afternoon that Congress is considering pushing off all cuts under a new deal to avert the fiscal cliff, top Republicans say that is absolutely false. The sequester cuts will either go through now, as written, or they will be replaced for no more than two to three months to be more specifically calibrated to avoid the blunderbuss across-the-board cuts largely affecting defense. During that delay time, cuts equivalent to the cuts that would have happened under the sequester will take place. In short, the same amount will be cut under either deal; the only...

Obama proposes Social Security cutsPatrick Martin 20 December 2012 **SNIP** The White House decision to propose cuts in future Social Security benefits is of enormous political significance. Social Security has long been characterized as the “third rail” of American politics—touch it and you die. Obama and Boehner are seeking to break this taboo and create a new political framework for imposing brutal austerity measures on working people. Whatever the immediate outcome of the talks in Washington, whether or not a deal is reached before December 31, the overall direction is clear: entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are...

Do not agree to Medicare cuts only. The Dems know that there will only be Obamacare within the next two years. Medicare cuts will evaporate into the wind. There will be no Medicare, no Medicaid, no TriCare, no private health insurance, ONLY OBAMACARE.

A powerful anti-tax crusader said President Barack Obama doesn't have a better argument for tax increases today than he did two years ago, when he agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans. "Raising taxes is always bad for the economy," Americans For Tax Reform President Grover Norquist told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "Tax increases are what's done instead of reforming government." Negotiations to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of mandatory tax hikes and spending cuts have largely been focused on the president's desire to raise tax rates for the top two percent of wage earners. Republicans have...

The "Bush Tax Cuts" were a tax deferment.