Sequestration – Threat or Strategy? [Reader Post]

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Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), on Sunday’s (February 10, 2013) Meet The Press, told host David Gregory, “David, sequestration was designed as a budget threat, not as a budget strategy.” That is certainly a shocker, a Democrat telling the truth. Durbin continued, “And, I think all of us understand that if it goes forward in less than three weeks it’s going to have a dramatic negative impact on several agencies.” That is an understatement, to say the least. Sequestration, an Obama administration idea (be sure to read these references), is a result of the budget process of 2011. Sequestration is a mandatory budget cut of $1.2 trillion over ten years, half from domestic (discretionary) programs, half from the defense budget, resulting from the so-called “SuperCommittee’s” inability to agree – on anything.

Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama, in October 2012, said, during a presidential debate, “First of all, the sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen.” That was our first hint that sequestration was a threat. And, Obama had the chutzpah to lie about its origin on national TV. As Curt says, Obama has “No Shame.” But, Democrats/liberals/progressives (DLP) and low-information voters believed him. And the lap-dog MSM didn’t call him on it.

Now that sequestration is again a hot topic, Obama is calling for what he calls a “balanced approach,” calling for any cuts to be balanced with new tax increases. In his weekly radio show, Obama said, “Now, my preference … is to do that in a balanced, comprehensive way, by making sensible changes to entitlement programs and reforming our tax code.”

There are only two little problems with Obama’s definition of balance and tax reform. First, regarding balance achieved through new taxes and cuts, Obama has a track record. The “fiscal cliff” deal that Congress agreed to was scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO revised its original estimates of spending cuts and tax increases down to a ratio of $10 in tax increases for every $1 in spending cuts, down from its original score of 43 to 1. Some balance, huh?

Second, as Charles Krauthammer says:

“Obama is trying to sell his ‘balanced’ approach with a linguistic sleight-of-hand. He insists on calling his proposed tax hikes – through eliminating deductions and exemptions – ‘tax reform.’ It’s not. Tax reform, as defined even by the White House’s own Web page on the subject, begins with lowering tax rates. It then makes up the lost revenue by closing loopholes.”

“Obama has zero interest in lowering tax rates. He just got through raising them at the fiscal cliff and has made perfectly clear ever since that he fully intends to keep raising taxes. His only interest in eliminating loopholes is to raise more cash for the Treasury – not to use them to lower rates. That’s not tax reform. That’s a naked, old-fashioned tax increase.”

So, what should Republicans (notice that I didn’t say conservatives – there is a difference) now do? Well, if Krauthammer’s analysis of the situation is to believed, nothing. Krauthammer advises Republicans to take the offensive by offering these issues:

  • Republicans should explain that in the fiscal-cliff deal the president already got major tax hikes with no corresponding spending cuts. Now it is time for a nation $16 trillion in debt to cut spending. That’s balance.
  • We are quite prepared to cut elsewhere. But we already raised taxes last month. If the president wants to avoid the sequester – as we do – he must offer a substitute set of cuts.
  • The sequester is for cutting, not tax reform. The only question is whether the president will offer an alternative set of cuts.
  • The Republican House has twice passed bills offering more rationally allocated cuts, for example, entitlement spending cuts. And note that the Democrat Senate did not pass either bill.

The problem is that with the MSM in Obama’s pocket, the truth, the issue messages will never get out.

But that’s just my opinion.

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Can the GOP buy air time and have some one who can actally speak tell their side of the nonsense.