Who's responsible for the sequester?
Everybody bought in, but nobody wants to claim ownership.
That's the short story on who's to blame for the so-called "sequester," which will cut $120 billion dollars from the federal budget on March 1 unless Congress passes a replacement that the president is willing to sign.
The White House has blamed Congress for the whole gambit, calling the sequester "bad policy" - a trigger designed to force a dysfunctional legislature to act on a more reasonable replacement. They also point out that a majority of members of both parties voted for the spending cuts.
Congressional Republicans, for their part, have said that the White House originally proposed the sequester - House Speaker John Boehner has dubbed it the "Obamaquester." They point to reporting from the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, who has described how then-White House budget director Jack Lew and legislative liaison Rob Nabors hatched the idea of a trigger - a delayed-onset package that would ostensibly force Congress to reach an agreement on the budget - during the height of dramatic negotiations on raising the federal debt ceiling during the summer of 2011.
President Obama, Woodward reported, signed off on the proposal, and the result of the debt ceiling negotiations - the 2011 Budget Control Act - created a congressional "Super Committee" to reach an agreement on deficit reduction and included the spending cuts in the sequester as a fallback if the committee failed.
The committee failed; the sequester looms.
Woodward also accused the president of "moving the goal posts" by demanding that a replacement for the sequester include a balance of spending cuts and new revenue. "His call for a balanced approach is reasonable," Woodward wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post, "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."
Woodward explained that the final deal reached on the debt ceiling "included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester."
Congressional Republicans have brandished Woodward's reporting as evidence that the administration is solely responsible for the budgetary chaos, but the White House isn't having it.
"Super Committee's mandate was not to replace sequester w/ spending cuts alone," White House press secretary Jay Carney said yesterday on Twitter. "To suggest otherwise is willfully wrong."
And today, the White House released a fact sheet arguing that the president's call for a balanced package "cannot in even the slightest way be considered a change of policy, a change of expectations, or moving the goalposts."
"Republicans and Democrats on the Supercommittee had a clear understanding that revenues and entitlement savings were supposed to replace the sequester," the sheet read, citing numerous instances in which Republican negotiators put revenue on the table. Even Woodward's own book, the White House pointed out, included a passage documenting as much.
And despite the crowing from Republicans about the White House's culpability in the mess that sequester has become, Woodward himself does not absolve the GOP of blame.
"A majority of Republicans did vote for the Budget Control Act that summer, which included the sequester," Woodward wrote in his op-ed, saying Republicans "have had their own episodes of denial and bald-faced message management."
The takeaway: Everybody's hands are dirty. But just days before a manufactured crisis sets fire to America's economic recovery, policymakers have fled the burning building, seemingly more inclined to point fingers than put out the blaze.
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When is Mr. Obama going to step up and lead this country. He has not stopped campaigning since he was elected in 2008. He continues to drive a wedge into the possibility of bipartisan politics.
Also, Mr. Obama has been asking for legislation to close tax loop holes on people making $1 million and more. He pretends this is tax reform. This is the same President who insisted on more than $30 billion in tax breaks for big business including $12 billion for the wind industry in the fiscal cliff deal. Mr. Obama wants to pick and choose which industries can utilize tax loop holes. If these industries do not fit his criteria then these industries should lose their right to utilize tax loop holes.
Mr. Obama needs to man up and be the leader of this country. He has not had an operating budget since he has been in office. He doen't want to be held accountable for his surmountable additions to our countrys' deficit. He has spent more in four years than George H.W. Bush spentin eight years. Our country is in far worse shape than when Mr. Obama was sworn in as President. This country can't afford to continue to give him our countrys' credit card with no limit.
The whole idea was conceived by Democrats to design a bill so onerous that it would never be considered. That bill was passed onto President Obama, which he signed last year. Over time there were attempts to find a solution, but all repeatedly failed.
Now the president is campaigning for a solution recently trying to enlist help from state Governors. As bad as the sequester is, the president deliberately makes it far worse on purpose. This has become a rather pathetic scare tactic.
Obama is still spending more than 5 times the rate G. W. Bush who had been the previous high-spending president beating Clinton by about 2 times. But Bush had to deal with the 911 attacks, 2 wars, the prescription drug plan for seniors, paying the lion share of bank bailouts, a large down payment on AIG and about 50% of the cost for the 2 US auto bailouts all on the Bush budget.
Then Obama launched massive spending programs somewhat like that done during the Great Depression, but his were wasteful. Every new job in his first year cost taxpayers at least $125,000 per job. Shovel ready projects were not ready, as Obama's interest was instead focused on ObamaCare. Instead of really addressing the economy, the main effort was and still is monstrously expensive ObamaCare, bigger government, more corporate regulations, The highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, excessive students grants with no monitoring, repeated bailout of poor people trying to keep their homes, and the ramping up a cadre of other social programs being grossly abused today -- such as free Obama phones with free calling plans. All this lavish monetary attention won enough votes for Obama's reelection by a margin of only 6% of the popular vote offering no real reelection mandate.
With nearly half of America still on food stamps and a fantastic reelection organization, it was no wonder that Obama narrowly won his second term, with Organizing for America pushing very hard to obtain the poor vote. Sadly American buying power has declined under Obama.
In January with the "Fiscal Cliff" a burning item, Obama wanted more tax revenue from the wealthy, but he got a bit less than he wanted. So when Boehner asked what do I get in spending cuts Obama replied, "You get nothing." Clearly, Obama will again kick the sequester issue down the road -- just as he still has not created a budget that Democrats will approve.
Obama has executive privilege to eliminate the sequester and to continue spending, but he may instead choose to denigrate the GOP in the blame game. We shall see.
Hope you all had a peachy vacation.
We wouldn't want you to work too hard or anything.