Sequester according to American taxpayers...
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Posted on 03/07/2013 11:45:05 AM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- I do not know about you, but to me this sequestration imbroglio is getting interesting. Last week, I wrote of my surprise that a basic untruth was being repeated over and over again by the White House, to wit, that the Republicans were responsible for the monstrosity of sequestration. I wrote that, as I recalled it, sequestration was an idea introduced by the White House to coax the Republicans and the Democrats into a deal in the summer of 2011 to raise the ceiling on the national debt. Remember that deal? And another thing, there would be no tax increase. President Barack Obama himself endorsed the 2011 idea of sequestration before claiming in his third debate with Mitt Romney that, "The sequester is not something that I proposed." And he went on, "It is something that the Congress proposed." Really?
Recently, most news stories that I read laid sequestration to the White House as part of the 2011 debt ceiling deal. Then Bob Woodward weighed in and made it obvious. He had written a book about the deal, and if he remained silent he would have appeared to have lied in his book. Said Woodward, "My extensive reporting for my book, 'The Price of Politics,' shows the automatic spending cuts [sequestration] were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of [Jack] Lew [at the time White House chief of staff and now secretary of the treasury] and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors ... " "Obama," Woodward added, "personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid." And Woodward gets technical, "They did it at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved."
He called this effort to blame sequestration on the Republicans "partisan message management." To me it is a blatant lie. After all, practically everyone who has written about the debt ceiling deal and now sequestration knows it is a lie or at least a deceit.
As the inimitable James Taranto has painstakingly chronicled in the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web Today," all hell broke out after Woodward's statement. Jay Carney, the president's press secretary, tweeted that Woodward was "willfully wrong." Apparently the press secretary does not know that Woodward already deposited his findings in a book whose veracity has heretofore not been questioned. Obama's political aide David Plouffe got personal, alluding to Woodward's age. Woodward is nearing 70, though the issue is not his age but the integrity of his reporting and, by the way, Plouffe is no paragon of virility. Then White House economic advisor Gene Sperling exchanged barbs with Woodward in a heated exchange.
Actually the only question is: "What did Woodward say in his book?" Was it accurate then? It appears that what he said was accurate. The president and the rest of his White House staff have been lying about sequestration for months. Finally, on "Meet the Press," Sperling admitted as much when he said after much equivocation that "we put forth the design of" sequestration. Why did he not say that in the first place?
Things are going to get more interesting. For months, the president has been talking as though sequestration has to be very painful and very ugly. Now the government is closing the White House for tours because of sequestration. There will be other showy demonstrations of these painful cuts. But the cuts need not be so painful in a $3.8 trillion budget.
The greater problem is that practically everything the president says has to be verified. He seems as Woodward says to forever engage in "partisan message management." Soon the country will catch on. There is no dealing with a partisan message manager.
Unfortunately, the Republicans aren't smart.
ditto for global warming hoax
bp oil spill
etc etc
constant lies to get the public to call Republican congress men to get them to “do something” and to “work with democrats to get something done” . what they are DOING is taking away our liberties and opportunities to make money by growing this stupid government
Zer0 initiated the sequestration as a tactic to force tax hikes on Congress. This is evident because the Obama Syndicate has made no effort since last summer to initiate any budget cuts. Sequestration is also a tactic to repeat the political dynamics of the 1995-96 government shutdown. It is a tactic to regain control of Congress for his last years as President.
If Juan Mclame and Lindsey Gramnesty are examples of pubbie leadership, and they are, they couldn’t think their way out of a paper bag. Mcconnell at least showed up last night though he was lame.
We just handed him the keys to the EBT cards. This will not end well.
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obamaumao and company wanted sequestration— both for the optics of a “blame repub” plan for the House races, esp for “fake” conservative dems to run agains fiscal conservative repubs in the house races. A calculation.
Second, they wanted this because it gives the cut power to them, and they will and are gutting the military as they disenfranchise them. They don’t have to cut the military— but they will selectively and avoid all kinds of idiotic wasteful spending (5-6 childrens school food supplier programs-—redundant in the extreme and not needed except by worthless parents who are buying luxury items with their food stamps).
All is false economy— always look to the constituent service, be it real “service” or the payment in kind giveaways that will never be cut. Meanwhile our own military families overseas and at home pay the price.
All with great showbiz.
Ryan should NOT go to the WH. Period. Nothing but BS “partisan message management” will come out of any “honest” exchange Ryan is roped into as a potential enabler for obamaumao. Let him stew in his own pot, or go there and say... sports jive. Nothing else.
Au contraire Tyrrell, the public will not catch on. Most of the public, at least the Obamatons, have no idea what sequestration mean, nor do they care. For some strange reason a great many conservative bigwigs seriously believe that when Obama is exposed as a liar (and he’s certainly one of the top one or two worst liars every to inhabit the White House), the public will see him for what he is, and recoil in anger demanding impeachment. That will never happen. The majority don’t care.
The President has always had budget line item veto power. The Executive Branch writes the checks. The Legislative Branch fills the account.
Obama's power is derived from writing checks - not from refusing to write checks. Budget cuts are a loser for him no matter where they occur.
That statement's only true if the President you are talking about is Jefferson Davis. POTUS does not have that power .... neither does The Impostor, by the way.
The majority are bought. That is the whole calculus of Democratic politics since 1932.
“The majority are bought. That is the whole calculus of Democratic politics since 1932. “
Indeed. My Dad, who died in 1963, was a democrat but hated Franklin Roosevelt.
He called the WPA, the ‘WPQ’...you can figure that one out.
Everything he predicted that would go wrong because of Roosevelt has happened. I hope he’s wrong about the rest.
There is nothing in place that forces the President to spend money. Congress can appropriate money to hire a new federal worker, but they can’t force the Executive branch to make that hire.
No, that's incorrect. Remember the trouble Pres. Nixon got into over impoundment? He tried that as a way of modifying the congressional budget acts, and had to bail. Impoundment is unconstitutional.
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