Obama reaches out to Boehner, McConnell on sequester
Sequestration poses threat to government agency budgets
Updated 6:30 p.m. ET
For the first time since the waning days of the "fiscal cliff" battle in late December, President Obama reached out to congressional Republican leaders to talk about next week's impending budget cuts known as the sequester.
"He placed calls earlier today to [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell and [House] Speaker [John] Boehner," White House spokesman Jay Carney announced today. "Had good conversations, but I have no further readout of those calls for you."
Both Boehner's and McConnell's offices confirmed the calls took place but neither would give details about what was discussed. An aide to Boehner said "the last substantive conversation" he had with the president was on Dec. 28; McConnell's office told CBS News it was Mr. Obama's first outreach to McConnell since New Year's Eve.
Administration and GOP congressional sources told CBS News political director John Dickerson that no progress was made in today's conversations. The sources say Republicans, resisting the president's idea to replace the sequester cuts with savings founds through the tax code, believe Mr. Obama's call was a public relations stunt and not a new basis for negotiation.
Today on Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show, Mr. Obama said, "We continue to reach out to the Republicans and say 'this is not going to be good for the economy and it's not going to be good for ordinary people,' but I don't know if they're going to move. And that's what we're going to have to try to keep pushing over the next seven, eight days."
"Whether or not we can move Republicans at this point to do the right thing is what we're still trying to gauge," Mr. Obama said.
The calls come a day after Boehner wrote an op-ed criticizing the president charging that the public "might not realize from Mr. Obama's statements is that [the sequester] is a product of the president's own failed leadership."
The $1.2 trillion sequester cuts, which were initially set to kick in on Jan. 1, emerged out of Congress' 2011 budget negotiations. Congress agreed that if a congressional "supercommittee" couldn't come up with an acceptable deficit reduction plan, Congress would just slash $1.2 trillion from the budget over 10 years -- half coming from defense spending and half from non-defense. Nearly everyone in Washington agrees that indiscriminately slashing $1.2 trillion would damage the economy, but lawmakers can't agree on a deficit reduction package with which to replace the cuts.
Given the economic damage the sequester would inflict, Congress this year stalled the cuts for two months -- which is why they're set to go into effect on March 1. Unless Congress acts before then, $85 billion in across-the-board cuts will kick in this year.
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The US post office is a prime example of republicans sabotaging government. They passed a law requiring the USPS to pre-fund employees retirement 75 years in advance in a 10 year window. No other entity in the entire country is required to do this except the USPS. This is what's causing the USPS to be cash strapped. Absent that the USPS would be fine. The bogus fiscal cliff crisis to the current sequester. There are more examples of republican sabotage, you get the picture.
I still think bobby needs to move to that GOP UTOPIA of Somalia -- NO government; NO taxes; NO regulations; NO Democrats; plus everyone can carry a fully-automatic machine gun everywhere! LOL!
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And I still think you would be more comfortable in Cuba or North Korea, lot's of government, the government provides for all your needs, left wing dictators, no one is allowed to own firearms except the police and military and everyone is equal. Like I said a utopia.
You say that like it's not in the constitution or something.
Pesky paleontology class showed me that. There really is not even a missing link any more. Its all in the skull suture patterns.
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As a 6', blue eyed swede, I would have to agree. Humans (**** sapiens) are primates of the family Hominidae, and the only extant species of the genus ****.
Midwesterners aren't that exciting. But we are a practical bunch.
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BOBW101 replies: "When has any repubic or grover norquist called for cutting military by 90% or for that matter any government"?
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No bobby -- you're obviously CONfused yet again, since your 90% cut in the military-industrial complex was classic rand/ron paul -- eviscerate the entire military which will never happen.
It was your proposal of elimination of all taxation which we need to provide governmental services, that is CLASSIC grover norquist ignorance!
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HIGG187 replies: "Were in the heck did you get that number at. For FY2011 it was 895 billion. In FY 2012 928.5 Billion. Who told you it was 1.3 trillion? My source was http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/
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LOL! Typical fox/rush parrot, taking my comment as meaning "defense" spending, when $1.3+ Trillion is what we are spending on national security, which includes that newest cabinet position of Homeland Security and all the other incidentals not included in the "defense budget" like:
1. Department of Homeland Security
2. U.S. intelligence budget
3. Veterans programs
4. Foreign affairs budget
5. DOD employees pension benefits
6. Interest on the borrowed money to pay for national security
Welcome to the world of the real U.S. national security budget. Normally, in media accounts, you hear about the Pentagon budget and the war-fighting supplementary funds passed by Congress for our endless WARS. That already gets you into a startling price range -- close to $900 billion for 2012 -- but that's barely more than half of it.
Unregulated business DOESN'T work. Just look at history. When unchecked, businesses in their greed wreck the environment and crash the enconomy. Will we ever learn from the past?
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Nonsense, the economy was crashed because of the government no the lack of.
The Bucket!
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Problem solved!
I was agreeing, Bob ;)
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Sorry, it's been a long week, a bit cranky.