Cuts in place, Obama and GOP brace for next fight
WASHINGTON (AP) — Severe spending cuts now the law of the land, President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans refused Saturday to concede any culpability for failing to stave off what both parties acknowledged was a foolhardy way to slash $85 billion in federal spending.
The still-fragile economy braced itself for the gradual but potentially grave impact of the across-the-board cuts, which took effect Friday night at the stroke of Obama's pen. Hours earlier, he and congressional leaders emerged from a White House meeting no closer to an agreement.
Even as they pledged a renewed effort to retroactively undo the spending cuts, both parties said the blame rests squarely on the other for any damage the cuts might inflict. There were no indications that either side was wavering from entrenched positions that for weeks had prevented progress on a deal to find a way out: Republicans refusing any deal with more tax revenue and Democrats snubbing any deal without it.
"None of this is necessary," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. "It's happening because Republicans in Congress chose this outcome over closing a single wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit."
The president said the cuts would cause "a ripple effect across the economy" that would worsen the longer they stay in place, eventually costing more than 750,000 jobs and disrupting the lives of middle-class families.
In the Republican-controlled House, GOP lawmakers washed their hands of the mess, arguing that bills they passed in the last Congress to avert the cuts absolved them of any responsibility. Those bills passed with little to no Democratic support and were never taken up by the Senate.
"We've done the work and shown that these choices can be made in a responsible, thoughtful way," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington in the GOP address.
Obama was holding out hope that as Americans start feeling the effects of the sequester — the term used for the automatic spending cuts — public pressure will force lawmakers back to the table. Ever wary that such fiscal fiascos could jeopardize the rest of his second-term agenda, Obama vowed in his weekly address to keep pushing reforms on immigration, preschool, gun violence and transportation.
But attention was already turning to the next major budget hurdles, with less than a month to negotiate a plan to fund the government beyond March 27 and a debt-ceiling clash coming in May.
Hopes that a measure to undo the spending cuts could be wrapped into a March deal to keep the government running dimmed Friday when both Obama and House Speaker John Boehner said they'd prefer to keep the two issues separate.
"I'm hopeful that we won't have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown while we're dealing with the sequester at the same time," Boehner said.
The still-fragile economy braced itself for the gradual but potentially grave impact of the across-the-board cuts, which took effect Friday night at the stroke of Obama's pen. Hours earlier, he and congressional leaders emerged from a White House meeting no closer to an agreement.
Even as they pledged a renewed effort to retroactively undo the spending cuts, both parties said the blame rests squarely on the other for any damage the cuts might inflict. There were no indications that either side was wavering from entrenched positions that for weeks had prevented progress on a deal to find a way out: Republicans refusing any deal with more tax revenue and Democrats snubbing any deal without it.
"None of this is necessary," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. "It's happening because Republicans in Congress chose this outcome over closing a single wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit."
The president said the cuts would cause "a ripple effect across the economy" that would worsen the longer they stay in place, eventually costing more than 750,000 jobs and disrupting the lives of middle-class families.
In the Republican-controlled House, GOP lawmakers washed their hands of the mess, arguing that bills they passed in the last Congress to avert the cuts absolved them of any responsibility. Those bills passed with little to no Democratic support and were never taken up by the Senate.
"We've done the work and shown that these choices can be made in a responsible, thoughtful way," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington in the GOP address.
Obama was holding out hope that as Americans start feeling the effects of the sequester — the term used for the automatic spending cuts — public pressure will force lawmakers back to the table. Ever wary that such fiscal fiascos could jeopardize the rest of his second-term agenda, Obama vowed in his weekly address to keep pushing reforms on immigration, preschool, gun violence and transportation.
But attention was already turning to the next major budget hurdles, with less than a month to negotiate a plan to fund the government beyond March 27 and a debt-ceiling clash coming in May.
Hopes that a measure to undo the spending cuts could be wrapped into a March deal to keep the government running dimmed Friday when both Obama and House Speaker John Boehner said they'd prefer to keep the two issues separate.
"I'm hopeful that we won't have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown while we're dealing with the sequester at the same time," Boehner said.
This comment is for liberals, republicans have a brain cloud and won't understand what I am talking about.You have to hand to to the ingenuity of republicans. They have managed to get members of their own party to vote against their own best interests. Even as experts, and scholars point out the stupidity of what they are doing they beg for more. It really is amazing to see someone drowning in the ocean and begging for someone to throw them an anchor rather than a life preserver. As I said, republicans won't understand this comment no matter how slow they read it. Even if they get an adult to read it to them they will disagree and continue to beg for the anchor.
The next fight may very well be the entitlement folks who get cut off of their benefits.
Here is an example of how American is going these days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=O-crMEKXR3o
Isn't is strange that no Foreign Aid has been slashed ? Thats because Joe US Citizen doesn't count. And foreign govt's do! So get prepared folks to be severely thrashed across your backside again...
Wonder how long before someone photoshop's some tears into that picture
Obama is worried that his 2nd term activist agendas, (all of which cost everyone more money) won't be completely "funded."
Obama vowed in his weekly address to keep pushing reforms on immigration, preschool, gun violence and transportation.
Forget about the spending cuts, forget about the debt - Obama has the courage and leadership to tackle preschool reform.
@Hellbilly Never mind the other noisy issues when there's an ideology to further.....you know those other pesky issues, the ones that really affect people's daily lives....
@Hellbilly .......and he'd screw that up too !! Some community organizer, eh?
According to the Associated Press, we've got enough money to give $250,000,000 more of it to Egypt but we can't fund Head Start:
"CAIRO (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi's pledges of political and economic reforms by releasing $250 million in American aid to support the country's "future as a democracy."Â Â Â Â Â
The CHANGE you voted for is a lie.
@Playanekes ""CAIRO (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi's pledges of political and economic reforms by releasing $250 million in American aid to support the country's "future as a democracy."  Â
SERIOUSLY?!?!?!
SMH! That's like me not having enough money to feed my children yet giving $100.000. to charity!Â
**Shakes Head** Â We need to scrap the whole darn mess- the ENTIRE government and ALL the politicians and revamp it.. Start over from scratch. It's so far away from what our founders intended it to be. They did NOT want the government to suck the citizens dry! That is exactly what they fought for, FREEDOM from the king. Now we have MANY kings.. One top king and all the little one's under him and we are paying them ALL.
Our government has become the biggest employer in the country and it continues to grow every day. With paying all the kings at the top and paying to support the poor at the bottom, there aren't enough middle men, to keep funding this.
The poor working men in the middle, toiling like slaves, can't earn enough nor pay in enough to support the government employees, the poor & those that choose not to work.Â
Work harder! Millions on welfare and your government reps are counting on you to support them!Â
@cwpholder @Playanekes ~  Excellent posts, both of you..!   $250 million to Egypt, "rewarding" Egyptian President Morsi's "pledges of political and economic reform"..?   Well, all I can say is, unless Pres Morsi's "pledges" are worth a LOT more than those that certain US elected politicians make (I won't name them, but we all know who they are anyway), we-the-taxpayers have just watched our gov't flush ANOTHER $250 million of OUR MONEY down the toilet..!
And WHY is our gov't so determined to fund everyone else in the world except us..??? Â Last time I checked, the Egyptians can't vote in our elections...(or can they/)...
If our gov't wants to "reward" people for something, how 'bout keeping those millions HERE..."reward" OUR citizens for a change... like maybe use that $$$ towards securing our BORDERS and/or put it towards much-needed help for our military veterans... (I'd say use it to help the schools, but we've already seen how well they mess THAT up..!)... Â Quit funding these stupid "pork projects" / phony "scientific research" scams..! Â Â
I think it would be soooo good if everybody that's now registered as a Repub or a Dem changed their registration to "Not affiliated with any party"... Â Hey, at election time, if there's an R or D candidate that you really feel is qualified, you can always vote for them, but in the meantime, the R and D registration #s would nose-dive...and maybe - just maybe, they'd start paying attention..! Â (I'm not holding my breath, but it'd be worth a try...)
@cwpholder @margay1 @Playanekes.....SHAKING head as usual.....I am so generally disgusted with people today.... The Cairo thing doesn't surprise me a bit.  Too many liars and crooked people in our govt.  We really need to clean it up.Â
@margay1 @cwpholder @Playanekes **Nodding head** YEP! You go girl!!Â
Obama refuses to compromise! With that in mind, Why should anybody else compromise? The end result is stale mate! Perhaps the best thing to happen to the taxpayers is for the government to do nothing!
@Freedom1267Â Here is a proposal for you. Â We need to make all of the salaries of elected officials subject to garnishment in the event of them screwing up. Â If you create a debt, then you pay for it....What, too logical? Â WHere is the accountability? Â Doctors are accountable for screwing up, why not politicians?????
@Freedom1267Â ~ Well, he11, doing nothing can't be much worse than what the politicians would end up doing to us...Â
@margay1Â @Freedom1267 Amen!
Did anyone else notice that Obummer said that closing tax loopholes would "help reduce the deficit"???? Pray tell how any taxes would help reduce the deficit when all he wants to do is increase spending, and any additional revenue, no matter where it comes from, would be used for that, not for decreasing the deficit that he made!! He is a master of doublespeak, saying one thing then doing something else entirely!!!
@musiclover Listen....Obama is just the stooge on the podium...  He is the current liar that is in the head seat.  What I want to know is, HOW people can be duped by this buncha crap over and over?  How the heck do you think that an increase in spending is NOT going to equal an increase in tax for the middle class?  The working class? The ones with most of the jobs?  Obama said he would NOT increase taxes on the middle class.....Bullstuff!!  My taxes have gone up 4%.  I am in the middle class.  I am sick of politicians and their lies. Just give me someone that is true blue and honest.  People will follow that person.  The heck with the stooges!  No offense to Larry, Curly and Moe...
@musiclover President Obama and the DNC have been getting hammered for being 'out to get' the 'rich' (which, not coincidentially is mostly accurate). Every proposal to date that they've brought forth has been heavy on the idea that increasing taxes is the only viable option.Â
The new DNC/Obama catchphrase is 'close tax loopholes'. It's more palatable, and can give them a different perceived goal.Â
Perception is everything in politics. For example of this reality, please reference the last round of 'budget negotiations'. The GOP waited until the tax cuts expired before signing off on any 'compromise'. As in, the tax breaks expired, which returned all tax rates back to pre-Bush II levels. The reason being that they can now say (honestly) that they actually did not vote to raise taxes, they agreed to cuts.Â
The Obama/Norquist battle on the hill continues. Neither side sees cause (or reason) to capitulate.Â
You really want to cut the spending, boys?
House and Senate both unanimously pass legislation that bans earmarks until a budget is signed into law (preferably, eliminates them all together).Â
Secondly, both chambers of the Congress forfeit all wages and benefits (and they are lost forever, not reapplied retroactively) until a budget is signed into law.Â
Next, all Congressional expenses (staff, equiptment, facilities costs) are suspended until a budget is signed into law.
In addition, beginning immediately, all Federal employees are required to pay into their benefits and retirement packages at a rate that is set by the private sector averages for like employees.Â
There is an immediate, across the board, cut of 10% in the Pentagon R & D budgets. This law also has wording the prevents ANY of these cuts from being handed over to existing VA programs or active duty soldiers.Â
I'd also strongly reccomend that the 'food stamp' program is handed over to the Dept of Health and Human Services, and retooled to only allow for nutritional content foods (IE-WIC program).Â
And, finally, ALL Congressional travel is done at the expense of the individual Congressperson and/or their own political party.Â
I would agree with everything BUT cutting the R&D for the Pentagon - that IS essential to our continued defense for the country, and should not even be on the table!
@musiclover The (estimated) spending on LM 'skunkworks' projects from 2010 through 2013 is estimated at close to 5.5 billion dollars.Â
Now, bear in mind that this 5.5 billion dollars has (effectively) been dumped into a black hole. There is no way to audit a penny of it. You cannot tell me that if 550 million of it (10%) was cut, there would be a demonstratable decrease in the level of 'national security'.
The 'black budget' that is used by the Pentagon is the single largest black hole in the Federal Budget. Even Social Security and Medicare/Medicade pale by comparison. While I do understand that the military/NSA/CIA have some projects that are better off not being made public, you cannot tell me that a net cut of 10% in funding would result in a significant loss of 'national security'.Â
Well... I suppose you could tell me both.Â
..I would just respond that you are a naieve fool.Â
@musiclover You mean like the F35 and the Raptor?
Both programs are exponentially more expensive than they ever should have been.Â
Do some research into the 'next gen' F35 program. It is the poster child for defense pork. We're several hundreds of millions into it, and the most basic version (air force) doesn't have a single one that's certified 'combat ready'. As a matter of fact, the 150 or so that the military does have have all needed 10 million or so in 'tweaks' to bring them up to (the lowered minimum qualifications) specs set forth by the Air Force. The Navy version is plagued with problems having to do with the distance the arresting hook sits behind the R landing gear (having to spend tens of millions more retraining pilots to land it on aircraft carriers), and the Marine version (the VTOL) has yet to make a single flight vertically under minimum load requirements.Â
These problems all stemmed from the program being pushed ahead by contractors (read:money paid for production) before there was ever a draft that received an airworthyness certification prior to the contractors being given the go-ahead for production.Â
Anyone who thinks the sequester was the idea of the Republicans is absolutely wrong:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/sperling-admits-obama-misled-debate-president-did-propose-sequester_705015.html
"The cuts would..... eventually costing more than 750,000 jobs...."
Hummm This sounds real bad & all but...
If tax cuts are costing jobs than TAXES are paying their salary.. I say CUT "em. We have WAY TOO MANY people on the government dole and YES anyone employed by ANY government and paid by them is on the dole. That is tax dollars!
Government jobs did NOT make this country great- they will not save our economy. Private sector jobs BUILD us up.. Private sector employees pay taxes IN, government employees SUCK tax money OUT.Â
Cutting 750,000 tax sucking jobs sounds like a good start, now let's cut about 25% more and we'll be golden!Â
@cwpholder I couldn't agree with you more. The cuts are in the wrong place. You don't cut defense spending when the world seems to hate you. You don't cut education (not sure if these cuts do affect education though). You cut the fluff, the superfluous BS. You cut the jobs of the special assistant to the assistance to the vice president in charge of the meetings to set up meetings. Â
Make public employees pay into their retirement like most private sector jobs. Make public employees pay for their health care and other benefits like most private sector jobs and most of all, get rid of the public employee unions.
@scoreboard @cwpholderÂ
Standing "O" For you scoreboard..
I think part of the problem lies with the sheeple.. They just don't use their brain! They don't stop to think the government has no money- that is OUR money, the tax payers, we the people. I read that 1/5 is employed and paid by one government entity or another, BOTH of my neighbors for example, she for DSHS and he for the school district.
Add to that the welfare and other government aide and DANG! It's a case of too many "chiefs" and not enough "Indians" paying in.
I agree we should not be cutting social security check & Veterans pay (that's the first thing BO threatens to cut every time), there are millions, heck hundreds of millions that can be cut from things that do not matter.
Let politicians stop flying via private jet, no more expensive booze & catered food and drop the study of "how titmouse feces affects the wood moth" (they do have stupid crap like that). Why any government employee needs multiple secretaries, aides, a dog walker, a publicist and a person dedicated to updating their facebook is unimaginable!'
Sorry LOL I am ranting now but we have become a nation of one giant king and millions of little kings.. We would get off cheaper going back to just paying "duty' to ONE king.. Â
@cwpholder Couldn't have said it better myself......Bravo CWP.
Still no cuts for the politicians
BOTH THE REP= AND DEM ARE TO BLAME FOR THIS IT STARTED IN THE BUSH YEAR,S AND NOW IN THE OBAMA YEARS IF ONLY HE CAN GET THE REP TO VOTE MAYBE HE COULD GET SOMETHING DONE ONE VOTE STALL AFTER ANOTHER HMMM I WOUNDER WHY HE CAN,T GET SOMETHING DONE=YOU DON,T THINK IT IS BECAUSE THEY WON,T VOTE DO YOU=LET,S JUST GET A INDEPENDENT FOR PRESIDENT AT LEAST THEN THE POWER STRUGGLE WOULD END AND FINELY WE COULD GET SOMETHING DONE
@Sherry L Campbell Another thing that would help is the use of punctuation. Periods and commas are our friends.Â
@Sherry L Campbell See the key on the left side of your keyboard right below the Tab key? It should say Caps Lock. Please learn how to use it so you don't look like a fool and look like your yelling?
Caps Lock - know it, live it, love it.
@Sherry L Campbell ........there's that old "George Bush" excuse. It'll never be Obama will it !!
@Sherry L Campbell You do realize by typing in ALL CAPS you are YELLING at everyone right?
NOTE Take the CAPS lock off.. Â If you have a sight limitation or something than my apologies.. Â
Elect a clown. Expect a circus !
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Here's the website:
http://www.attackwatch.net/
@scoreboard "Here's the website"
ROFL I thought that was a joke.. "Attack watch" I mean.. Seriously..Â
I guess I shouldn't be surprised..
@cwpholder @scoreboard ROFLMAO!!!!
@cwpholder Makes you wonder if someone really is trying to hide something........
@feralGo for it. Do you want my address as well? The first amendment also guarantees "the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Talking bad about the president is part of these grievances and as long as no one is making threats, well you're barking up the wrong tree.
@feral I'm reporting you for not even being able to spell Dear Leaders name correctly.
We could always sell California. Two birds one stone.
So Wisser speaking of birds; If Boner was a bird which bird would he be and why? Obama....
@Icarus Boehner would be the Majestic Red Tailed Hawk. Obama would be a Turkey vaulter. Heavy on the Turkey.
@TreeWizard @Icarus I think they would both be doves, soft little doves of love and peace. but i respect your rights to post your feelings and would die for my country in afghanistan to protect those rights. just like the current members of our fighting armed forces are doing this very mninute.
@Icarus @TreeWizard I stand by my statement.Â
@TreeWizard
Eh...Boner would be a cross between an ostrich and a puffin; an ostrich because it's big and gangly, awkward, ugly and dumb and a gooney bird because they lay their eggs on the barren ground. Obama would be a penguin because hes over dressed, has no place to go, and left standing around in the cold.
@TreeWizard Â
But, we would have to sell it to China because the Californians already own it and the Mexico doesn't have enough money.Â
@Icarus Deal. We will sell California to the Chinamen.Â
@TreeWizard The mainstream media go out of their way to make him look as stupid as possible.
@Icarus haha, shart.
@TreeWizard Â
That my friend is the most serious question of the day and requires some serious and sober consideration. I would say that Boner looks like a man frustrated because his hand is filled with peanut butter when all he wants to do is spank the monkey and, yes, Obama looks as though he needs to fart but hes afraid it will be a shart....horns of a dilemma for each. Â
Good Question though.
@Icarus @TreeWizard Serious note though. Doesn't Boehner look like he wants to strangle a betch. While Obama looks like he is trying to hold a fart in.
@TreeWizard
I like Chinese...they only come up to my knees.Â