GOP gets the blame for sequester... Not Obama?

You fellas have done a lot of bitching, carping and crying over whose IDEA the sequester was. But who's to blame if it goes through?

ACCORDING TO THIS ARTICLE, IT'S YOUR BELOVED GOTparty!

http://http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-bard

Blaming the Tea Party-Controlled GOP for Sequestration Isn't Partisan, It's Factual
Posted: 02/24/2013 6:35 pm
By Mitchell Bard

The Republican policy position on sequestration is, on the surface, seemingly irrational.

There is near universal agreement that the deep cuts from the sequester that are due to take place in a few days will be damaging to the economy, costing in the neighborhood of a million jobs (based on a nonpartisan estimate) and threatening our economic recovery (the Congressional Budget Office estimates growth to be reduced by 0.6 percent). But the Republicans in Congress are nevertheless willing to take the pocketbooks of the American people hostage, all to try and ransom spending and entitlement cuts that would, in the opinion of many economists, cause further economic damage to all but the wealthiest Americans (Paul Krugman does a good job explaining this point).

So why are the Republicans doing it? After all, a majority of voters just three-and-a-half months ago rejected the very economic policies the Republicans are blackmailing the country to implement. President Obama got nearly five million more votes than Mitt Romney (and 126 more electoral votes), the Democrats picked up two seats in the U.S. Senate in a year in which the Democrats had far more seats to defend, and Democratic House candidates received more votes than Republicans. There would seem to be no argument for the Republicans to threaten the country over rejected policies.

It is easy to blame the Republican members of the House and Senate for not getting the message. Other than some cosmetic moves (sending Marco Rubio out for the State of the Union rebuttal, for example), nothing has changed (Rubio espoused the same anti-government, fact-challenged rhetoric the voters rejected in November).

But the decision of Republicans in Congress to continue an ideology-first, country-second approach to governing is, in its own way, extremely logical, even calculating. Thanks to gerrymandering, a large amount of Republican House members represent solidly red districts, so they have little to fear from a Democratic challenger, nor do senators in solid red states. But the same cannot be said about competition from the Tea Party right.

The fear is not abstract. The Tea Party has routinely challenged Republican incumbents, even staunchly conservative ones, who even emitted a whiff of being somewhat reasonable. Conservative standard-bearer Orrin Hatch narrowly survived a Tea Party challenge last year. Hatch wasn't as fortunate as his fellow conservative from Utah, Bob Bennett, who lost to his primary challenger in 2010, just as conservative Indiana senator Richard Lugar lost in 2012 to the now infamous Richard Mourdock, he of rape from pregnancy "is something that God intended to happen" fame. The Tea Party primary challenge has become such a threat to mainstream Republicans that Karl Rove started the Conservative Victory Project to help GOP incumbents ward off less electable primary opponents.

When you consider how few people actually vote in midterm primaries (voter turnout for the 2010 primaries was only 17.8 percent), it means a narrow slice of the population, residing on the far right of the political spectrum, is dictating how Republicans in Congress are proceeding. No wonder John Boehner is insisting on cuts to entitlements and other programs mainly aimed at working and middle class Americans, all while protecting the wealthy from any tax increases, to avert sequestration. A big chunk of his caucus is made up Tea Party ideologues, and the rest are in danger of being primaried if they don't do the Tea Party's bidding.

So what is the result of all this madness?

Well, for one, the Republican party, at a federal level, has become a toxic brand. Beyond the election losses in November, polling data shows that the majority of the American people are not with the GOP. According to a recent Bloomberg poll, only 35 percent have a positive image of Republicans (the same poll shows a 55 percent approval rating for the president), and only 44 percent believe the GOP policy of cutting spending and taxes--the thing Republicans say is so important they will blackmail the country to get it -- will create more jobs than the infrastructure investments proposed by the president.

But more importantly, Republicans in the House and Senate, afraid of primary challenges and, in some cases, the product of them, have handed their party over to the lunatic fringe. They have placed a purist, anti-government, anti-taxes, pro-wealthy, anti-middle class, Ayn Randian ideal above the practical, compromising, hard work of actually governing. They have created a toxic atmosphere in Washington, in which damaging the country (again, we are talking about a million people losing their jobs) is preferable to working with a president they irrationally despise and compromising to move even an inch closer to where the majority of voters stand on the issues.

Simply put, the Tea Party-controlled Republicans in Congress are driving us over an economic cliff.

Until we get away from the "blame everyone," "it's both sides" false equivalency of shying away from telling the truth about the GOP's suicide mission, pretending the same thing is happening on both sides (David Brooks's pathetic attempt to draw a false equivalency was so loathsome, he felt the need to walk back his characterization of the president's position the next day), the dysfunction in Washington will continue.

The only way things will get better is if we cast off the fear of seeming partisan and let the truth and facts drive the debate.

The bottom line is that the Republicans are demanding spending cuts that were soundly rejected by the voters in November, and to get them, they are threatening to allow the sequestration cuts to go forward, which will be bad for the American people. (Let's remember that the sequestration cuts are the result of the Republicans holding the country hostage last year over the debt ceiling.) And a major driving force behind the Republicans' refusal to compromise--again, against the wishes of a majority of Americans--is a fear of losing their seats to Tea Party challengers. Which means we, as a country, are being held hostage by a small number of far-right ideologues whose views have been rejected, again and again, by a majority of voters (and not just by Democrats, when you consider GOP losses in red state Senate races like Indiana and Missouri).

If the sequester goes forward, and the country pays the price, everyone has a responsibility to stand up and point a finger at the reason for our government's epic dysfunction. If John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and their Republican colleagues in the House and Senate have any sense at all, they'll duck at that moment. Because this fabricated, unnecessary national disaster will be on them and their inability/lack of desire to do what is best for Americans, not what is best for the Tea Party.

I don't know anyone who disagrees that media types like Mitchell Bard and the Huffington Post, et al, will try to blame the GOP (and TP by extension).

The title alone speaks to the author's complete mis-understanding of GOP politics if he thinks that the GOP is controlled by the Tea Party...........

Oh we'll, I guess there's only room here for one opinion ... Yours!

FACT JACK OFF!

Ok; sorry your feelings are hurt....I won't comment on your stupid thread..

Carry on with your non-sense........

Obama is the president, Democrats are the ones in power. They carry the burden.

Woodward: Obama repeatedly lied about responsibility for budget sequester cuts

President Barack Obama and former White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew repeatedly lied by last year by claiming congressional Republicans were responsible for the looming $85 billion cut in the federal budget through sequestration, according to The Washington Post editor Bob Woodward.

Based on interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved in budget planning, Obama personally approved Lew’s plan to propose the mandatory trigger to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in July 2011.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/23/wo...#ixzz2LjF34knP Originally Posted by Whirlaway

http://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?t=678099

I'm looking forward to this!!!!!
Bring on those ridiculous cuts coming from ridiculous places. Only a politician would think we are to cut soliders pay and meals on wheels over hamsters sex habits.

Bob Woodward, the man who brought down Nixon, says it was Obama. You can't argue his professionalism and he is not a conservative.

Woodward goes so far as to say that the GOP House has submitted budget cuts and budgets whereas the Senate has failed to do their constitutionally mandated duties. So this is a democrat-democrat problem.

Obama is the president, Democrats are the ones in power. They carry the burden. Originally Posted by acp5762

GOP controls the House, dumbass.

Additionally, IBRunning&Hiding, the Woodward story didn't actually use the words that the Daily Caller used to describe it. If any of you dildos had read the Times story you would have also read Woodward's shot at the House GOP as well.

Did you read the story, Barleyswine? Looks like you just read IBRunning&Hiding's cut and paste.

Pity you're all just jerking off.

Can't you read??? The HOUSE has submitted more than one budget complete with specific budget cuts. The senate and the White House have not. Are you really that stupid?

"Woodward documents in his 2012 book The Price of Politics that team Obama first proposed the idea of the sequester. Expanding on his work in a Sunday Washington Post op-ed, he noted—as he has before—that both President Obama and his would-be Treasury Secretary Jack Lew lied on the campaign trail by saying the sequester originated with House Republicans. The White House has now ceded that fact."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100491803

GOP controls the House, dumbass.

Additionally, IBRunning&Hiding, the Woodward story didn't actually use the words that the Daily Caller used to describe it. If any of you dildos had read the Times story you would have also read Woodward's shot at the House GOP as well.

Did you read the story, Barleyswine? Looks like you just read IBRunning&Hiding's cut and paste.

Pity you're all just jerking off. Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

Doesn't matter. The president is suppose to know how to negotiate and work with congress to achieve progress. He apparently doesn't know how to do that. Just because the Republicans control the House doesn't mean it's their fault things don't always go so well. Besides Obama wanted the cuts anyway.

The irony here is priceless from the crowd that is always calling to "cut everything, shut it all down". And when cuts might actually occur? The level of whining would be laughable if it wasn't so damn predictable . . .

As usual, you've lost your mind. You think the majority of the American people give a rat's ass what Bob Woodward says?

The republicans will get the blame for this, not sure how well deserved that is but that will be how it plays out. I see they are throwing up some last minute alternatives here in the last few hours. Which tells you how worried they are about being saddled with the blame. Not that they give a shit what effect it has on the economy.

Bob Woodward, the man who brought down Nixon, says it was Obama. You can't argue his professionalism and he is not a conservative.

Woodward goes so far as to say that the GOP House has submitted budget cuts and budgets whereas the Senate has failed to do their constitutionally mandated duties. So this is a democrat-democrat problem. Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

The irony here is priceless from the crowd that is always calling to "cut everything, shut it all down". And when cuts might actually occur? The level of whining would be laughable if it wasn't so damn predictable . . . Originally Posted by MooneyFlyer

welcome back bitch....