Senate Democrats Sequester Bill

[Magox]

ADDS over $7 Billion to the Deficit.

 

CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that enacting the bill would increase budget deficits from changes in direct spending and revenues by $7.2 billion over the 2013-2023 period.

 

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43960

 

 

So what was suppose to reduce the national debt, actually increases it.

 

These are the clowns who run our country.

 

[B-Man]

There are no cuts.

 

 

.

[TakeYouToTasker]

This is why Senate Republicans are likely to offer to cede the entire power of the purse to the President. It will steal the issue from him, and force him to act, and then defend those actions, rather then say that he knows we need to to make balanced cuts, and hard choices, but can't because Republicans are being obstructionist.

[Koko78]

This is why Senate Republicans are likely to offer to cede the entire power of the purse to the President. It will steal the issue from him, and force him to act, and then defend those actions, rather then say that he knows we need to to make balanced cuts, and hard choices, but can't because Republicans are being obstructionist.

 

I have the feeling that the White House would be adamantly opposed to such a measure. It is improper for Obama's Administration to be responsible for anything other than their permanent campaign. Forcing him to lead the nation would cut into his golf and fundraising time.

[Fezmid]

I have the feeling that the White House would be adamantly opposed to such a measure. It is improper for Obama's Administration to be responsible for anything other than their permanent campaign. Forcing him to lead the nation would cut into his golf and fundraising time.

You mean like the threat to veto the flexibility bill?

http://washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-threatens-to-veto-bill-that-gives-obama-flexibility-on-implementing-sequestration/article/2522836

[3rdnlng]

You mean like the threat to veto the flexibility bill?

http://washingtonexa...article/2522836

 

From your link:

 

 

"President Obama prefers the “meat cleaver” approach of sequestration to any policy that would allow him to implement the spending cuts more selectively, as his administration threatened to" (veto) "a Republican proposal to that effect because it does not include a tax increase."

Edited March 3, 2013 by 3rdnlng

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

This is why Senate Republicans are likely to offer to cede the entire power of the purse to the President. It will steal the issue from him, and force him to act, and then defend those actions, rather then say that he knows we need to to make balanced cuts, and hard choices, but can't because Republicans are being obstructionist.

If that's true, why didn't the Democratic sequester bill pass the Senate?

[Magox]

If that's true, why didn't the Democratic sequester bill pass the Senate?

 

Not quite sure I understand your question. The senate democrats plan wasn't what TYTT was talking about, their plan included some spending cuts, the "millionaires tax" and some stimulus spending.

[KD in CA]

 

 

Not quite sure I understand your question. The senate democrats plan wasn't what TYTT was talking about, their plan included some spending cuts, the "millionaires tax" and some stimulus spending.

 

'Stimulus spending' -- one of the more absurd euphemisms of recent times.

 

Ditto on the 'millionaires' tax aimed at people earning/worth a fraction of that amount.

[Keukasmallies]

I've checked all around outside the house and, to date, the sequester sky hasn't fallen. While I'm sure there will be some cuts that have significant impacts on some parts of the economy, I'm equally as sure that POTUS' doomsday scenario is just another of his phony pronouncements ex cathedra.

[Nanker]

The Federal government's discretionary spending has been decimated. Decimated, do you hear me? Decimated!

[B-Man]

How's everyone surviving "Sequestageddon"

 

Now that this game has been played and anyone but low information voters knows that the president

 

..........proposed the sequester,

 

..........agreed to it,

 

..........failed to advise his agencies to make cuts in January so the damage would be less,

 

..........refused to agree to a Republican offer giving him greater flexibility in making cuts,

 

any inconvenience citizens suffer should be rightly blamed on him.

 

 

 

.

Edited March 3, 2013 by B-Man

[Fan in San Diego]

I've checked all around outside the house and, to date, the sequester sky hasn't fallen. While I'm sure there will be some cuts that have significant impacts on some parts of the economy, I'm equally as sure that POTUS' doomsday scenario is just another of his phony pronouncements ex cathedra.

 

Sequestration is going to hammer San Diego pretty hard. Nasco a local ship builder already has 10 contracts cancelled because of this. 1 in 4 jobs are related to the military in San Diego. Tens of thousand of jobs are being lost because of this crap. They say it will take a month or two before changes will be felt. Traffic controllers unions mandate a 30 day notice to affect their schedules. I wish these guys would just compromise and find a solution rather than pointing fingers. IMHO when both sides are finger pointing and doing nothing, both sides are wrong. Politicians are there to serve their constituents not the political parties ego driven agendas.

[3rdnlng]

The republicans already made their compromise that was effective 1/1/2013.

[Fezmid]

The republicans already made their compromise that was effective 1/1/2013.

QFT

[B-Man]

From Bill Keller at the New York Times ........................Hmmmmm.

 

Obama’s Fault

By Bill keller

 

Our feckless leaders may be incapable of passing a budget, but, boy, can they pass the buck. The White House spent last week in full campaign hysteria, blitzing online followers with the message that heartless Republicans are prepared to transform America into “Les Misérables” in order to protect “millionaires and billionaires, oil companies, vacation homes, and private jet owners.” Republicans retort that the budget-cutting Doomsday device called sequester was actually invented by the White House.

 

In fact, the conceptual paternity of sequester was bipartisan. Both sides agreed that Congress should set in motion an automatic deficit-cutting scheme so draconian that it would force a divided Washington to come together around some sane compromise. The scandal is that Washington is so incapable of adult behavior that it can do the right thing only if it is staring down the barrel of a shotgun — and, it turns out, not even then.

 

{snip}

 

His next act was to launch a bipartisan commission to grapple with those “unpleasant decisions” promised on Inauguration Day. In December 2010 the commission, led by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, delivered its list of spending cuts and revenue increases, plus the entitlement reforms necessary to fortify Medicare and Social Security for the surge of baby-boom retirees.

 

The Simpson-Bowles agenda was imperfect, and had plenty to offend ideologues of the left and right, which meant that it was the very manifestation of what Obama likes to call “a balanced approach.” So did he seize it as an opportunity for serious debate about our fiscal mess? No, he abandoned it. Instead, he built a re-election campaign that was long on making the wealthiest pay more in taxes, short on spending discipline, and firmly hands-off on the problem of entitlements.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/opinion/keller-obamas-fault.html?hp&_r=1&

 

 

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[IDBillzFan]

So did he seize it as an opportunity for serious debate about our fiscal mess? No, he abandoned it.

 

 

On more than a few occasions I've pointed out how Obama is like the employee at your job that has you shaking your head, wondering "How in the hell is this guy still employed." Shows up late. Leaves early. Loaded with excuses for deadlines and milestones missed -- always blaming something or someone for getting in his way, holding him up, backing up traffic. There's back-ordered equipment, he ran out of ink, someone wasn't clear enough -- the list goes on and on, and if you were unable to see it before, he made sure you saw it last week.

 

I'm one of those people who was proud to see America elect its first black president, even if he wasn't my choice. It's just unfortunate that of all the black leaders in the world, we picked the one who behaves like Bernie in accounting on the Thursday before a three-day weekend; checked out with excuses in hand.

Edited March 4, 2013 by LABillzFan

[DC Tom]

How's everyone surviving "Sequestageddon"

 

Now that this game has been played and anyone but low information voters knows that the president

 

..........proposed the sequester,

 

..........agreed to it,

 

..........failed to advise his agencies to make cuts in January so the damage would be less,

 

..........refused to agree to a Republican offer giving him greater flexibility in making cuts,

 

any inconvenience citizens suffer should be rightly blamed on him.

 

 

 

.

 

I thought about this this morning, and I'm truly surprised no one's come back at Obama with...

 

"So let us see if we understand this: 'You didn't build that, somebody else made it happen?'"

[IDBillzFan]

Throwing this in one of the numerous sequester threads. It should probably be in all of them. Weird times we live in. Very weird.

 

http://www.washingto.../#ixzz2MhBAtI5M

 

Email tells feds to make sequester as painful as promised

 

 

The Obama administration denied an appeal for flexibility in lessening the sequester’s effects, with an email this week appearing to show officials in Washington that because they already had promised the cuts would be devastating, they now have to follow through on that.

 

In the email sent Monday by Charles Brown, an official with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Brown asked “if there was any latitude” in how to spread the sequester cuts across the region to lessen the impacts on fish inspections.

 

He said he was discouraged by officials in Washington, who gave him this reply: “We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that ‘APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be.”

[DC Tom]

Throwing this in one of the numerous sequester threads. It should probably be in all of them. Weird times we live in. Very weird.

 

http://www.washingto.../#ixzz2MhBAtI5M

 

"Make sure reality matches our message."

 

That's real leadership, right there.