I think the most telling part for Obama is his refusal to accept essentially line item authority on the budget.
The president was not offered authority to select the cuts. One cannot "refuse to accept" that which he has not been offered.
The president does not support being offered the authority to make selective cuts, because that does not address the problem. Taxes need to be reformed, and the Republicans refuse to negotiate tax reform.
Even though the Senate failed to give a plan that would allow Obama to select the cuts instead of the meat cleaver approach...
Exactly.
had Obama chosen to support that idea he could make the necessary cuts.
"Making the necessary cuts" would not be a solution to the problem. The issue is tax reform, not just spending cuts.
The Administration is afraid the backlash of losing support after choosing cuts will hamper or eliminate any movement they have for other monumental issues like immigration reform, gun policy, and making long term structural improvements to medicare.
I don't doubt that the administration would be afraid of the backlash from making cuts to people. But that is the point. The administration does not believe that cutting worthwhile programs and people is necessary, when tax reform is a better solution to the problem.
Regrettably, the Republican Party will not allow the problem to be dealt with appropriately.
Those of you joking about the cuts to specific thing not having a consequence across the country should hope to have decent savings. When all of the department of defense civilian employees take a 20% cut in pay so will economic activity across the country. The small companies that depend upon reliable defense spending will crumble and so will all of the support industries in the towns they are located. Like it or not we have ridden out the economic storm because of government spending. Cutting that life line to our economy will be like cutting your airline underwater.
Exactly. That's why it would be irresponsible of the president to support
only the ability for him to make
cuts. What he needs is the ability to raise revenue through tax reform.
We have not really moved forward on fixing these issues for almost five years now. It is time.
Exactly. We have had a major party which has refused to participate in the governmental process for five years now. It has been rendered incompetent by virtue of its internal dysfunction.
Just this morning, Mitch McConnell appeared on CNN, claiming the sequester was great, even as John Boehner was on
Meet the Press, saying it was terrible and must be stopped.
Republicans refuse to negotiate on the sequester, and can't even seem to decide what policy they want to support. America is paralyzed by the failure within the Republican Party.
