Posted on 02/05/2013 8:33:43 PM PST by SeekAndFind
In November 2011, President Obama lamented that “some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts” that were part of that August’s deal to raise the debt limit. “My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one.”
Now, it’s Obama who is looking for an off ramp. With the automatic spending cuts about to go into effect, the Associated Press reports, “President Barack Obama will ask Congress to come up with tens of billions of dollars in short-term spending cuts and tax revenue to put off the automatic across the board cuts that are scheduled to kick in March 1, White House officials said Tuesday.”
Ever since the election, Republicans have been frustrated by their lack of leverage against Obama. Taxes would have gone up by $4.5 trillion on Jan. 1 if nothing was done, so Republicans were forced to agree to limit the damage. If there were no increase in the debt limit, any economic chaos that followed would have allowed Obama to blame Republicans and distract attention from the problems posed by the nation’s mounting debt, so they agreed to suspend it — a strategy I had described as Maneuver X.
Now Republicans have turned the tables on Obama. If nothing happens by March 1, about $1 trillion worth of spending cuts will go into effect automatically. Ideally, Republicans don’t want the military spending cuts, and they have voted in the House to replace them with other cuts. But they can live with them if nothing happens. Coming off the fourth quarter in which the economy contracted by 0.1 percent and was hurt by defense cuts, Obama doesn’t want to have headlines of defense contractor layoffs eroding his political capital in the short window he has to advance his second term agenda.
His suggestion that Republicans agree to raise taxes again to delay the sequester is laughable — they have zero reason to do it. Either he agrees to spending cuts of an equal amount, or the sequester will kick in.
It’s all about North Korea’s ballistic missile and the threat to the caliphate it represents.Obama needs the defense bucks for ABM’s. The ultimate irony as he desperately maneuvers for Reagan’s ghost to save him.
Don’t count your chickens...... this has not played out yet and I have heard this line before many times.
Yeah sure, cut the military's balls off after working them like dogs for a decade.
Axe that defense budget and send the economy into a real tailspin.
Eff these peckerhead RINOS.
RE: this has not played out yet
OK, I’m game. What other options does Obama have this time other than to demagogue this?
HE was the one who proposed the sequestration when the budget battles were going on.
Will he now say — “I didn’t mean it when I pushed it”?
This time, he can’t even use the threat of a government shutdown.
What else does he have up his sleeve?
Every time the Republicans have a Democrat president against the wall some “Centrist” or “Maverick” Republicans will fish his chestnuts out of the fire.
What happens every time is they talk targeted cuts but they all squawk and eventually cave to even cuts across the board without regard to dollar/value or security.
Defense budget for 2012 was something like $680 Billion.
The sequestration will cut the military budget by $500 Billion OVER 10 YEARS !!
That means about $50 billion a year. Which means instead of spending $680 Billion a year, it will be a “mere” $630 Billion/year.
How disastrous is that really?
“Don’t call my bluff”
Trust me, Obama is not in any corner. With the socialist brain trust surrounding him and backing by Soros this is but a slight blip on the overall scheme of things. The planning for this has been going on for years and I’m sure all contingencies have been taken into consideration.
He has forced the Congress into a corner.
He will not take blame.
This guy could crap on Congresses collective heads and they would say thank you.
RE: “Don’t call my bluff”
And what are you going to do about it if we do?
Sequestration is the law.
Sequestration can only be avoided if Congress passes legislation that undoes the legal requirement in the Budget Control Act of 2011
Can the Executive Branch reconfigure sequestration cuts?
No. The cuts are automatic, across-the-board reductions to all discretionary programs unless exempted by the BCA.
The Executive Branch will have no authority or ability to redistribute the cuts.
Paging Mr. brown, Charlie brown. Please report to the football kicking area..
I see it your way. Reality has a way of being redefined on the fly in our brave new world.
Here is a list of programs exempted from sequestration:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/905
My feeling is this — IT WON’T EVEN BE FELT BY MOST PEOPLE.
This country survived spending one trillion less than it does now up to 2008.
It can and will survive pretty well.
It stinks on ice!
We have been running these folks ragged for over a decade and we cut their budget first?
Hows about we cut back on bennys for illegal aliens?
As I said, it has not played out yet. His goal is to keep himself popular by demonizing the GOP and so far its working great for him,
But yes this is a way better hand for the GOP than the tax extension fight, Obama signed the budget control Act to get his credit extension so the GOP can point out that he agreed to this.
The GOP had no way to win the other one.
What choice do they have in this one? Let it go is their only option.
$4 million?
Nancy Pelosi spends that on booze.
So what's your solution? No spending cuts? Increase revenue to insulate the military from cuts?
We have had no real spending cuts. Neither party really wants spending cuts. They would rather keep the huge deficits and add to the national debt. Eventually, this house of cards will come crashing down on all of us. I say let sequestration happen.
If we can't absorb a $100 billion cut a year out of a $3.7 trillion annual budget, something is very wrong.
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