Obama lies again, implies he opposed Sequester
As unbiased observers may have noticed, Obama's hypocrisy on..well, virtually everything...is staggering. Case in point: The automatic spending cuts known as the "sequester."
To understand how Obama is playing American taxpayers for fools you have to review the origins of the proposed so-called spending cuts. Back in 2011 Obama wanted congress to agree to raise the laughably-misnamed "debt ceiling" so his continued huge deficit spending wouldn't trigger a financial crisis. But because the GOP had won a majority of House seats in 2010, Obama knew he had to have the votes of at least 30 House Republicans to get a Democrat-written bill passed.
With Republicans pushing for spending cuts, getting them to vote for a Democrat-friendly bill was looking tough. Obama's solution was to devise a bill that *looked* like it was aggressively cutting spending. In theory the Repubs would be almost compelled to vote for it. Sure enough, they passed it, and Obama signed it into law.
The new law set up one of those famously ineffective congressional committees to try to hammer out a "bipartisan" spending plan. If they couldn't agree on one, the law provided that a certain dollar amount of cuts would automatically take place--with half of the cuts to come from defense spending.
Amusingly, the bill specified that NO cuts could be made to any "entitlement programs"--which of course now account for the bulk of government spending.
From Obama's and the Dems' standpoint, the "sequester" was the perfect weapon: They were certain the GOP wouldn't want to accept the huge defense cuts in the sequester bill, and would thus be forced to agree with whatever the Dems proposed as an alternative.
Much to the surprise of Obama and the Dems, the GOP held their ground, clearing the way for the automatic spending cuts to take effect on March 1st.
Now, with the automatic cuts scheduled to take effect in a week, Obama is wailing to high heaven that making those cuts would be absolutely, totally disastrous! Disastrous! He gave a speech about how the sequester would result in teachers and "first responders" being laid off (those are paid by local governments, not by the feds). No reporter asked him how federal cuts would affect those positions.
To hear Obozo tell it today, the sequester is a horrible idea--one pushed by eeebil Republicans, designed to hurt the poor.
Except the sequester was his idea. And here's a transcript of him back in November of 2011 threatening to veto any attempt to ease or roll back the sequester's proposed cuts.
Gosh, what in the world could have changed between then and now to make him switch positions 180 degrees?
Simple: He sees a chance to demonize the Republicans, by implying that the sequester was their idea and that he always opposed it. This is designed to increase public support for his policies, since he'd be seen as the defender of the poor.
And of course no one in the lying media will call bullshit on him.
Fortunately the bastards haven't yet gotten brazen enough to make old internet vids and transcripts go away. But I expect that'll start happening soon enough.
By the way, that link to Obama's threatened veto of attempts to roll back the cuts in 2011 is from a fringe tinfoil-hat outfit...CBS news.
To understand how Obama is playing American taxpayers for fools you have to review the origins of the proposed so-called spending cuts. Back in 2011 Obama wanted congress to agree to raise the laughably-misnamed "debt ceiling" so his continued huge deficit spending wouldn't trigger a financial crisis. But because the GOP had won a majority of House seats in 2010, Obama knew he had to have the votes of at least 30 House Republicans to get a Democrat-written bill passed.
With Republicans pushing for spending cuts, getting them to vote for a Democrat-friendly bill was looking tough. Obama's solution was to devise a bill that *looked* like it was aggressively cutting spending. In theory the Repubs would be almost compelled to vote for it. Sure enough, they passed it, and Obama signed it into law.
The new law set up one of those famously ineffective congressional committees to try to hammer out a "bipartisan" spending plan. If they couldn't agree on one, the law provided that a certain dollar amount of cuts would automatically take place--with half of the cuts to come from defense spending.
Amusingly, the bill specified that NO cuts could be made to any "entitlement programs"--which of course now account for the bulk of government spending.
From Obama's and the Dems' standpoint, the "sequester" was the perfect weapon: They were certain the GOP wouldn't want to accept the huge defense cuts in the sequester bill, and would thus be forced to agree with whatever the Dems proposed as an alternative.
Much to the surprise of Obama and the Dems, the GOP held their ground, clearing the way for the automatic spending cuts to take effect on March 1st.
Now, with the automatic cuts scheduled to take effect in a week, Obama is wailing to high heaven that making those cuts would be absolutely, totally disastrous! Disastrous! He gave a speech about how the sequester would result in teachers and "first responders" being laid off (those are paid by local governments, not by the feds). No reporter asked him how federal cuts would affect those positions.
To hear Obozo tell it today, the sequester is a horrible idea--one pushed by eeebil Republicans, designed to hurt the poor.
Except the sequester was his idea. And here's a transcript of him back in November of 2011 threatening to veto any attempt to ease or roll back the sequester's proposed cuts.
Gosh, what in the world could have changed between then and now to make him switch positions 180 degrees?
Simple: He sees a chance to demonize the Republicans, by implying that the sequester was their idea and that he always opposed it. This is designed to increase public support for his policies, since he'd be seen as the defender of the poor.
And of course no one in the lying media will call bullshit on him.
Fortunately the bastards haven't yet gotten brazen enough to make old internet vids and transcripts go away. But I expect that'll start happening soon enough.
By the way, that link to Obama's threatened veto of attempts to roll back the cuts in 2011 is from a fringe tinfoil-hat outfit...CBS news.
posted by SF at
10:03 AM
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