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Subscribe to RSSThe automatic spending cuts, just days away, would cut $85 billion a year, having an impact on federal food inspectors, TSA officers, Department of Defense and civilian workers. NBC's John Yang reports.
President Barack Obama used his bully pulpit Tuesday to warn of calamitous consequences for the U.S. economy should the automatic spending cuts known as the “sequester” go into effect next Friday.
The president warned that the automatic cuts, totaling about $85 billion over the course of this year, would prompt job losses, weakened national security and canceled government services – among other consequences.
“So these cuts are not smart, they are not fair, they will hurt our economy, they will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls,” Obama said in a statement at the White House. “This is not an abstraction; people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again.”
The speech featured no new, concrete proposal from the president detailing how he would prefer for Congress to replace the sequester.
NBC's Chuck Todd says it may feel as though the sky is falling (once more) but it's likely the spending cuts will go through March 1, the government will come up with a compromise deal, and they'll punt something else down the road.
Democrats in Congress released a plan last week that called for $55 billion in new revenues from closing tax loopholes and deductions, and additional cuts by $27.5 billion to each the defense and discretionary spending budgets over the course of the next decade.
Obama’s speech was otherwise spent reiterating points he’s made for the better part of the last two months. He said that any sequester replacement should be “balanced” – shorthand for a combination of new tax revenue and spending cuts – and Obama urged lawmakers to approve a shorter-term replacement for the automatic cuts if they couldn’t reach consensus on a broader package by the end-of-February deadline.
Rather, the president, who was flanked by first-responders whose jobs Obama said would be threatened by the sequester, was making use of political optics and the presidential bully pulpit to pressure Congress to act.
Still, the urgency appeared to have little effect on Republicans, who dismissed the president’s remarks as unserious about reaching a solution.
"Once again, the president offered no credible plan that can pass Congress – only more calls for higher taxes," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.
President Barack Obama voices harsh words toward Republican lawmakers Tuesday while speaking about looming budget cuts.
“Today's event at the White House proves once again that more than three months after the November election, President Obama still prefers campaign events to common sense, bipartisan action,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement.
Indeed, many Republicans have treated the sequester as a fait accompli; Congress is out of town this week, and lawmakers would only have a handful of days next week to act upon the sequester. Some Republicans have also argued that even if the sequester is replaced, its $85 billion in cuts should set a baseline for offsetting cuts in other areas of the budget.
“I have to say, though, that so far, at least, the ideas that the Republicans have proposed asks nothing of the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations,” Obama said of the GOP proposal. “So the burden is all on first-responders or seniors or middle-class families. They doubled down, in fact, on the harsh, harmful cuts that I've outlined.”
The president added, as if to drive home the point: “Well, that's not balanced. That would be like Democrats saying we have to close our deficits without any spending cuts whatsoever. It's all taxes. That's not the position Democrats have taken, that's certainly not the position I've taken.”
This story was originally published on Tue Feb 19, 2013 11:04 AM EST
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You see Greedy Leftwing Scum are going right for the next Tax Hike, and resisting even the small spending cuts that were agreed to 2 years ago.....
Never enough with these scum. The cowardly Republicans shouldn't have caved in January. They got nothing for the tax hike, not a penny in reduced government spending, and slimy liberals are trying to squirm out of even allowing the sequestration reductions.
Never, ever, ever give any liberal any tax revenue increase without immediate 3 to 1 spending cuts that take place in that calendar year. If you agree to tax revenue hikes at all.
As opposed to your last President who spent like a drunk sailer.
What gall
Why not allow President Obama to get his agenda implemented?
If he sucks like you say then you can point to him.
Why so scared to allow him anything he wants to come to vote?
Hmmmm?
If he was a drunk sailor, you guys are a battleship full of them.
2008 budget 2.9 trillion
Every year since then under Obama: 3.5 trillion+ and rising.
Every year's deficit under Obama: 1 trillion+.
You obviously have no clue.
Spending growth is way down undder President Obama.
The huge debt and its interest is all on georgie Boy.
FACT
Just what President has increased the Debt by about 5 Trillion in 4 years?
For those who do not understand economics it is important to point out that a deficit consists of TWO factors; revenue and spending. Spending has not increased as drastically under this president as it did the previous one. However, the great Bush recession took its toll on the revenue side of the equation.
Federal Revenue by year in Trillions
2001 1.991
2002 1.853 (Bush tax cuts begin)
2003 1.782 (more Bush tax cuts)
2004 1.88
2005 2.153
2006 2.40 (housing bubble begins to burst)
2007 2.57
2008 2.524 (Bush recession begins)
2009 2.105 (Bush recession continues)
2010 2.162 (Bush recession ends in late 2009)
2011 2.30
Lies ^ and more left propaganda from Willard. Just more FACTLESS claims
www. cbsnews. com/8301-503544_162-57400369-503544/national-debt-has-increased-more-under-obama-than-under-bush/
"If Mr. Obama wins re-election, and his budget projections prove accurate, the National Debt will top $20 trillion in 2016, the final year of his second term. That would mean the Debt increased by 87 percent, or $9.34 trillion, during his two terms. "
How can people say the economy is thriving when the feds are printing money like mad (and have been for years) Our money is no longer backed by the gold standard, so it's not worth the paper it's printed on... Our economy is a false positive. No matter if the sequester goes through or not. I'm not left or right, I don't watch any media, I search out information all over the internet and come to my own conclusions.
Democrat theme song.
1,2,3,4,1,2
Let me tell you how it will be,
There’s one for you, nineteen for me,
‘Cause I’m the Taxman, (Obama)
Yeah, I’m the Taxman. (Obama)
Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cause I’m the Taxman, (Obama)
Yeah, I’m the Taxman. (Obama)
(If you try to sit ), I’ll tax your seat,
(If you get too cold ), I’ll tax the heat,
(If you take a walk ), I’ll tax your feet.
Taxman. (Obama)
‘Cause I’m the Taxman, (Obama)
Yeah, I’m the Taxman. (Obama)
Don’t ask me what I want it for
(Haha! Mister Wilson!)
If you don’t want to pay some more
(Haha! Mister Heath!),
‘Cause I’m the Taxman, (Obama)
Yeah, I’m the Taxman. (Obama)
Now my advice for those who die, (Taxman!) (Obama)
Declare the pennies on your eyes, (Taxman!), (Obama)
‘Cause I’m the Taxman, (Obama)
Yeah, I’m the Taxman. (Obama)
And you’re working for no-one but me,
(Taxman). (Obama)
Ever notice how right wing dings have zero artistic skills?
Awful senses of humor also.
Goes along with low intelligence.
NBC...the oficial Obama network....Obama this...Obama that...the sequester was his idea....now that it's going to happen...it's going to be a disaster....he wanted it..and now he's going to get it.....the worst POTUS this country has ever had....
Blah Blah Blah
Now go away.
Yeah.....little Johnny....blah....blah...blah....Obama spends $1000.00 hr.. on golf lessons....Obama this...Obama that....what a freaking loser we have in the white house....and he's building a second oval office...at taxpayers expense of 387 million....omg....like he does anything in the one he has.....
Obamacare is coming! Who will the Dems blame for that??? Come on Dems who you going to blame?? Like children the Dems and Obama will NEVER accept responsibnility for anything gone wrong.
KETTLE MEET POT
The great recession- YES YOU DID BUILD THAT!
Proud?
Wow national healthcare! Run for the hills little piggies!
I hope you weren't trying to get a sun tan during Obama's summer of recovery.
Huh?
Sorry Dimwits It was your infallible leader that brought us the sequester. It all came from the white house, not congress or the GOP.
The republicans are just going to hold him to it.
The sequester was brought on due to the WH not being able to come up with a budget plan, mainly due to no cuts just spend, spend, spend.
Well the bill is now due, time to pay up and stop blaming everyone else for your failings as a leader.
Incorrect the sequester came about because Republican defense of corporate wealth!
FACT
I see the "Clown in Chief" is yelling fire again. Quite a turnaround from the person who suggested and wanted the sequester in the first place....
Blame....blame......blame.....
Divide.....divide.....divide.....
Spend.....spend.....spend......
Just another great day in the White House.....
RUBBISH
RUBBISH "
RUBBISH
Next?
Bush one did it......Bush two did it.........Republicans did it..........
Dirty Air.........Dirty Water..........throw Granny under the bus........
TARP........Shovel ready...........Solyndra........
Just another day on the links
Obama: "We need to avoid those devastating cuts my team proposed and I signed into law".
What a douchebag.
You obviously know nothing about the sequester and how it came about.
Next?
I luv schooling you nutcakes
I could say Boo and it would be schooling the rightwing because they love to be scared.
Watch!
"socialist"
They scatter like roaches
LOL
@ Johnny, You mean "trying to school"... These rethugs are stoopid!!!!!! If Fox doesn't tell them, then it ain't so.... How pathetic they are.....
And yet not one person refuted what ObamaLies said. Just more name calling. How progressive of you all. Please don't let facts confuse your agenda of name calling and false accusations. I'm sure you all are fully wound up and spinning like little demonic tops.
left.....
Does calling women slutz make you more of a man?????? Didn't think so. Just makes you look stoopid!!!!!
Fox is for Freaks.........
But Obama forgot to mention the looming Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) which will have the same effect.
Politics, full speed ahead!!! Damn the country and its people!
"The president asked the republicans to compromise' HA HA HA HA HA HA HAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
Just wait until you liberals in academia have to go part time & lose your health beneifits....it's a coming...by this time next year a family of four will be paying $20,000 a year for insurance...that great Obamacare that all you idiots pushed for.....what losers....
Says the ignorant moron from a state that is sucking off the federal government to run their ACA insurance exchange and likely is one of the big 5 social welfare recipients. Wow, talk about losers. How's your hypocrisy feeling today?
And $20k-$30k a year is what people already pay for insurance before ACA. Oh, you didn't know that did you... you've never had to actually pay for your insurance.
Dixie girl is on Medicaid.
Destroy the economy?
Fits right in with the GOP plans
Common, Sense, You have none. The blame lands squarely on the incompetent Barrack H. Obama. He has, with the help of his fellow progressives, divided this country beyond his highest hope. Those who voted for Obama will one day be openly looked at as the scourge of society that they are. One day you will scrape the Obama ad off your car and throw it in the trash, just so you won't be looked upon by all as one of the foolish.
Perhaps Obama needs to check with the CBO Director about the actual data. The CBO does its financial projections based on current law. Those projections now include the budget caps from the 2011 debt deal, the fiscal cliff deal, and all the sequestration cuts being implemented as scheduled on March 1st.
Here is a comment from the CBO Director's testimony to both the House and Senate Budget Committees last week: "We expect that growth in real GDP will pick up after this year, to about 3½ percent per year in 2014 and the following few years."
A real GDP growth rate of 3 1/2% is almost twice the GDP growth rate of the past 3 years. Does that sound like a devastated economy to you??? It sounds to me like a booming economy compared to what we have seen these past 3 years from Obamanomics.
LMAO, CBO projections based on obamanomics????
Again LMAO!!!
The same CBO that predicted In January 2001, the government would run a $5.6 trillion surplus from 2001 to 2011.
Hah! What a laugh.
True...but they're economists, not fortune tellers (or are they one and the same). No one could have foreseen the extent of damage done by 9/11 and the wars that followed. The great mistake was in not repealing the tax cuts following 9/11 and putting the country on a truly "war footing." Instead of asking for common "sacrifice" to meet the enemy, we were told to go shopping.
www. cnn. com/2013/02/06/politics/cnn-explains-sequestration/
"It started with the 2011 standoff over the U.S. debt ceiling, when Republicans in Congress demanded spending cuts in exchange for giving the Obama administration the needed legal headroom to pay the federal government's obligations to its bondholders. In the end, Congress and the administration agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts. About $1 trillion of that was laid out in the debt-ceiling bill and the rest imposed through sequestration -- a kind of fiscal doomsday device that Congress would have to disarm by coming up with an equal amount of spending reductions elsewhere."
Key word here = C U T S
A word the Obama administration knows nothing of.
Astronomical debt, middleclass tax hike, four dollar gas comrade obama is on a roll!!!
G Bush can be credited with the debt explosion.
Bullcrap on the middle class tax hike.
Presidents dont control gas prices.
STRIKE THREE
Obama is responsible for the price of gas?
hahhahahahah
Silly right winger.
Must suck to be so clueless
You can continue blame President Bush???
I see it more in comrade obama's lap!!!!
I see your head in comrade Obamas lap.
Owned
Anyone who loves America should blame Bush for what left.
Perhaps you hate this country
Its simple.
The last Republican administration totally ignored our economy and lied us into wars and what did we get?
The GREAT BUSH RECESSION!
Now that we have a responsible President in office they wont allow him to put his policies in place by obstructing anything he tries to do.
So now you idiots want to say "what has he done" Look at the unemployment and welfare numbers" when the obstruction in congress hasnt allowed him to put his policies into affect.
So you cant say what he is doing isnt working when you do everything in your power to make him and the country fail.
Why not allow him to implement his plans and then and only then can you judge him.
What are yous afraid of?
You want to point the finger at him then allow him to make the changes he wants.
Until then you have zero to say about it.
Sounds reasonable huh?
Not sure why sequestration needs to happen if the president is serious about cutting the deficit (both yearly and the total amount he's racked up thus far). I wish the entire media would better vet the issues that are hurting our nation. I'm also shocked at what a golf round in Florida with Tiger "Man Whore" Woods cost the U.S. taxpayer. That round could have waited till Summer and could have been done in the DC area. Where are the real reporters and journalists anymore? This is FUBAR.
And yet the deficit obama inherited has gone down year over year.
Name the last GOP president to reduce the deficit.
Crickets
Worrid about a round of golf after your last Administration raped our country?
What an idiot
Everything that has passed through this man's lips is a lie; this is no exception.
So you're saying Bin Laden is still alive?
Have you seen the body....:)
Has the POTUS forgotten sequestration would not be the law if Obama had not inked the deal?
His claim on this is preposterous and goes against everything the the administrative branch of government stands for. BHO did not have to sign it, but he did.
As Harry Truman stated "The Buck stops here"
So do not try to let yourself off the hook and go after Congress, the blame game is unpresidential.
"Administrative branch"
Uhhhhhhhhh
Dude....You don't even know what branch of government the office of the presidency resides in?
Red states are the least educated by far.
Thanks for confirming that sad fact
Republicans were holding the country hostage.
Thats why the sequester happened.
John Boehner crowed about it.
Trouble is they expected to win the election.
Now that they didnt the sequester is a huge Obama blunder?
Wake up fools
Common Sense.
I meant to say executive branch. Sorry not in a red state. Live in the liberal mecca called the State of MN. The only state to vote blue in General Elections since 1972.
And attacking my statement. Can you offer any substantive argument to my statement. Is it not the President's duty to veto any bill that he feels is wrong for the country? If its wrong now, why wasn't it wrong when he signed it into law?
Huh?
Nice try
Sorry you're an idiot
Your fault, not mine
You're lost Johnny, the deal was done and now the punk in chief is playing games. He wants it to happen so he can blame someone else.
Rubbish
It's a fact Jack. You need to educate yourself.
Well no sh!t Sherlock. The republicans came to the table, you accepted the deal and then reneged and came back with crap. Now it's everyones fault but yours. What a punk.
For those who do not understand economics it is important to point out that a deficit consists of TWO factors; revenue and spending. Spending has not increased as drastically under this president as it did the previous one. However, the great Bush recession took its toll on the revenue side of the equation.
Federal Revenue by year in Trillions
2001 1.991
2002 1.853 (Bush tax cuts begin)
2003 1.782 (more Bush tax cuts)
2004 1.88
2005 2.153
2006 2.40 (housing bubble begins to burst)
2007 2.57
2008 2.524 (Bush recession begins)
2009 2.105 (Bush recession continues)
2010 2.162 (Bush recession ends in late 2009)
2011 2.30
^ Fact LESS
www. cbsnews. com/8301-503544_162-57400369-503544/national-debt-has-increased-more-under-obama-than-under-bush/
"If Mr. Obama wins re-election, and his budget projections prove accurate, the National Debt will top $20 trillion in 2016, the final year of his second term. That would mean the Debt increased by 87 percent, or $9.34 trillion, during his two terms."
Looks like the community organizer is right on track, even though this article is now a year old.
The Right doesnt understand the lasting damage the Bush policies had on our economy.
Least revenue and largest spending increases since WW2
That's why real Americans blame Bush.....
So that it never happens again and presidents like Obama won't have to fix these complete and total disasters
Maybe these uneducated clowns need a different website to look at, if their browser will allow them to go to anything but we worship Obama pages (NBC NEWS)
www. factcheck.org /2012/02/dueling-debt-deceptions/
Q: How much has the federal debt gone up under Obama?
A: During his first three years in office, it rose $4.7 trillion, an increase of 45 percent.
I can school these loons all day long. :)
Yes, you prove that with every post.
Hhahahahahhahahahhahahahahahh
Thats correct. All of which was to fix what Bush left us with so the 4.7 can also be put on Bushes tab.
Get it
Next?
School is in session
As usual, that is where you're wrong yet again you Obama loser.
www. forbes. com/sites/jamesglassman/2012/07/11/the-facts-about-budget-deficits-how-the-presidents-truly-rank/
"As for spending itself, during the George W. Bush years (2001-08), federal outlays averaged 19.6 percent of GDP, a little less than during the Clinton years (1993-2000), at 19.8% and far below Reagan, whose outlays never dropped below 21 percent of GDP in any year and averaged 22.4%. Even factoring in the TARP year (2009), Bush's average outlays as a proportion of the economy was 20.3 percent – far below Reagan and only a half-point below Clinton. As for Obama, even excluding 2009, his spending has averaged 24.1 percent of GDP – the highest level for any three years since World War II."
Yes school is in session, but put down your crayons because we're not in kindergarten anymore clown.
Common Sense,
What is he "fixing" common sense? Is he fixing the value of our dollar? 3 rounds of QE3 have devalued it to the point of nothing. Inflation is going to be a lasting problem, since when the Fed needs cash they just print.
Is he fixing our spending problem? Is he fixing our world conflicts? Now as a 2 time GWB voter (a tad ashamed to admit that), he continues to practice GWB's bad policies, and now he is implementing his own which are even worse.
Is he restoring and fixing our civil liberties? The ACLU gives OBAMA a D- in protecting our civil liberties.
Oh my Gosh! The fed spent 3+ Trillion dollars last year and now they may have to cut 50 billion out of that. What will we do?
Barry at his best; he doesn't even like or take credit for his own plan? Whats up with this??
GOP plan
Too bad you aren't smart enough to know.
Punnie, his name is President Obama.
Hey Common U - Hell, I wasn't aware that the GOP was President!!
Lilarose, respect is earned.
There is a handful of Republicans who should be arrested and tried for sedition. That would include McCain, Graham, Cruz, Rand Paul, and the female who is always standing behind them at the mic. That is the short list.
You sound like a Facist Lilarose.
Any relation to Mussolini?