Courtesy of Mish.
Here we are once again. In spite of $trillion deficits as far as the eye can see, neither Obama nor the Democrats want to do anything about it.
Please consider Obama to Urge Congress to Delay Automatic Spending Cuts
President Barack Obama will urge Congress to postpone automatic spending reductions scheduled to begin March 1 as Senate Democrats debate options for replacing part of the $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts.
Obama will ask Congress to delay “deep, indiscriminate cuts to domestic and defense programs” in remarks scheduled for 1:15 p.m. today, according to a White House statement. “Uncertainty around the sequester is already having a negative impact on our economic growth,” according to the statement.
“The challenge we face right now is the fact that government spending is completely out of control,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said yesterday on the Senate floor. “So to focus on a tax of any kind is to miss the point entirely.”
In an interview on Bloomberg Television today, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Democrats and the president have been “absent” in working toward fiscal discipline. “All we hear from this president is ‘we’ve got to raise people’s taxes.’ That’s just not the answer,” said the Virginia Republican.
Boehner of Ohio and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, both Republicans, have said they expect the full spending cuts to take effect.
While Defense Secretary Leon Panetta once called the automatic cuts a “doomsday mechanism,” Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in a Jan. 29 interview that it is “more likely than unlikely” they will take effect.
Defense CutsDefense programs would be cut by 7.3 percent, or $42.7 billion, during the last seven months of fiscal 2013. Non- defense budgets would be trimmed by $42.7 billion.
Many programs that Democrats care most about would be reduced. Obama’s Office of Management and Budget said the plan would make reductions of 2 percent to Medicare providers and 7.6 percent to non-defense programs such as temporary assistance for needy families.
Will Republicans Wimp Out Again?
Notice the talk of doomsday cuts even though the war in Afghanistan is winding down and the war in Iraq is over.
…
