WASHINGTON - President Obama and congressional leaders emerged from a nearly hour-long White House meeting Friday with no deal to avert automatic spending cuts, assuring the reductions known as sequestration will start going by day’s end.
The meeting came after last-ditch efforts by both parties to replace the $85 billion in cuts or lighten their impact failed in the Senate Thursday. And the finger-pointing over who’s at fault for the reductions - a debate that set the tone for failed talks on Capitol Hill this week - continued.
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"Today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office. Now, this will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we've long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay, and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control." -Barack Hussein Obama 2/23/09
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When you use his middle name, we feel the love. We get the message: wink, wink. And so subtle too.
I created the sequester... (yes I did, no matter what I or Jay Carney or any one else says)
but I blame others for its effects!
Forward, Comrade, Forward!
Comrade? so the President is a communist now?
Of all the repetitious blowhard performances Barry the O has ever put on, this one comes close to being the most egrigious and boring. He called on some reporter named Jill to ask the first question and then rattled on and on and on and on and on about how irresponsible and damaging the Republicans are for not obeying him and his prescriptions for handling the sequestation that he and his gang thought up in the first place. And in verbosing back to at least two other reporters, Barry the O blathered the same boring prescriptions and criticisms, without a word of constructive suggestion (except tax hikes or revenoo enhancers) to solving the dilemma. And he managed to suggest it will still be round in 6 months with wives of troops deployed overseas unable to get free baby sitting for their kids, causing both the mothers and the troopers to have panic attacks. And border patrol folks are going to lose 10% of their pay a week, as are the janitors and garbage can emptiers at the U.S. Capitol. But blathering Barry said nothing about either members of Congress or the Senate or himself or his closest cronies, like Cabinet members, suffering the loss of even one cent of taxpayer-supplied income. Nor did Barry suggest that he might stop flying Air Force One all over the country to keep up his incessant campaigning, which really should come to be known by something more accurate, Presidenting by Bumptious Bluster.
Um, you spelled "egregious" incorrectly.
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One hell of a leader. Blame everyone else. Continue to raise taxes and spend. Let this thing go through and I'm sure we will endure the cuts.
However, I agree with others that his staff and Congress should have to take some hits.
Why is he so angry? Sequestration WAS his idea. As his pal, the Reverend Wright says "the chickens have come home to roost". Robert Woodward, a Liberal, has exposed our feerless leader and look what Obama's pals in the White House are trying to do to him .All of the Liberals loved him when he was taking down Nixon. The truth hurts Mr. President. Stop wining and complaining and show some leadership for once.
Wrong. Sequestration was agreed upon by both houses of congress. Robert Woodward a "liberal" You must be very young or you don't care a whit about facts. Nixon took himself down by being a paranoid, ego maniac who allowed his "operatives" to steal documents. And he got caught. The president wants a fair deal which includes a 30% tax hike to raise revenues to help get the deficit down. But, facts are just so annoying aren't they? Especially when all that matters is one's own idealogy. By the way your spelling stinks: "feerless", "wining"....really? Quite pithy commentary.
He admitted in his little tirade today that there are programs that are wasteful and redundant but he refused to cut them unless he gets his tax increase. He left the presser, took his ball and went home.
Barack Obama today: "I should somehow, you know, do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right." But the Jedi are good Star Wars people, trained to use the Force through passive meditation, patience and a commitment to justice. These Jedi are not the Dark Side, they fight the Dark Side. And, the mind meld is a Star Trek thing where a Vulcan can telepathetically transmit and read thoughts in another's brain. So now we have a mixed-up President who tries to get a laugh with a nonsensical science fiction metaphor. In seriousness, the hypocrisy of our President in the sequester debate comes from two facts: 1.) The sequester idea came from Obama's White House. Bob Woodward is the culprit who in his latest book (The Price of Politics) has outed Obama as sequester's daddy. According to this book, Obama personally approved of the plan for the White House Chief of Staff (Jack Lew) and White House congressional-relations chief (Rob Nabors) to propose the sequester idea to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. This is reason number one why Obama's White House is now out to get Woodward. Sean Hannity on FOX is calling the President a liar for blaming others for the sequester; I prefer to avoid the word, "liar" and I'll just call our President hypocritical. This is not the first time in history an elected official created a problem, blamed others for it, and then asked for extraordinary powers to correct the problem he in fact started. 2.) Yesterday, Republicans in the Democratc-controlled Senate proposed to allow the President to identify what federal budget cuts would take place starting today, as long as the total budget cuts would equal what the indiscriminate sequester cuts would produce. The Democrats in the Senate shot down the Republican proposal, stating that tax increases should accompany Presidential authority to make the budget cuts. The new insistence of the Democrats to couple tax increases to a reasonable budget reduction plan is why Bob Woodward recently in a newspaper said Obama is "moving the goal posts" in the sequester debate. This is reason number two that Obama's White House is out to get Bob Woodward. Frankly, I don't think a guy who doesn't know his Star Wars from his Star Trek can ever bring down Bob Woodward. For those who need a refresher on Woodward, it was he who with and Carl Bernstein, between 1972 and 1976, broke the story of the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex, and uncovered a system of political "dirty tricks" and crimes that eventually led to indictments of forty White House and administration officials, and to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. So, my money, in this Obama-Woodward fight, is on Woodward.
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Excellent post, Thermo. My money's also on Woodward. As a country we are fortunate to have a guy like Woodward who isn't afraid to speak truth to power. We could use about a dozen more like him in the national media. Obama's elves (i.e., Cuttter, Plouffe) are no more than truth trimmers - no match for Woodward.
When is Obammer going to stamp his feet, throw himself on the floor and turn purple from holding his breath?
The man is a caricature of a president. He may "look" presidential, but he is nothing more than an empty suit.
And check this BG headline out! He "slammed" them? Hardly, he made himself look like an even bigger fool.
His bunch of clowns can't even get their stories straight, he says it was the Republicans idea, his press secretary says "nope". Then Obammer signed it into law. If he didn't like it, why did he sign? DUH.
But he is right about one thing, he is dumb. It was his idea, so in his own words:
“We shouldn’t be making a series of dumb, arbitrary cuts to things,” Obama said.
Gee, Barry, it was YOUR dumb idea. . . .
The president is an intelligent, likable person who has proven to be a highly skilled campaigner. However, his political skills have yet to rise to the same level. Dare I say it, but it may be time to dust off Joe Biden and use his political skills in helping things move along.
You gotta love the folks who debate who caused the "sequester". It took the Congress and the President. But wait the Boehner thinks they are a great idea, so why not accept responsibility. Boehner if he likes these cuts, shouldn't he be saying, "That's right I get 98 percent of what I wanted." Oh wait he already said that about the sequester when he made the deal with Obama. So I think they both own it.
Now my friend "History" can carry on all he wants. I could carry on all I wanted, but the public at least the polls isn't too keen on this. Like Boehner, "History" wants the cuts, but then why say, "it was Obama's dumb idea'> It should be according to "History" Obama's great idea.
So great somebody gets to do their little partisan and the public gets the shaft. Nice. The janitor who loses money. Who cares. Kids out of Head Start. Who cares? Shipyard workers unemployed. Who cares? Free the frightening illegal immigrants. Who cares? The problem is folks want it both ways. Budget cuts, but I won't take responsibilty for them.
There is really no way to argue with this kind of circular nonsense. Ideology leads to close mindedness, leads to stupidity. And from my perspective that is all we are seeing from the pols and most of the public that takes sides.