Obama: Fear the Sequester Cuts!
The president went to Virginia today to warn of painful budget cuts set to kick in on Friday. Howard Kurtz on who’s winning the messaging war.
As President Obama warns of the pain from deep budget cuts set to kick in on Friday, Republicans are accusing him of crying wolf. Howard Kurtz on who's winning the message war.
President Obama, taking his campaign against automatic spending cuts on the road, had a ready answer on Tuesday for Republicans who want to put the meat cleaver in his hands:
Not happening.
Not happening.
Appearing before hardhat-wearing shipyard workers in Newport News, Va., the president tried to step up pressure on the GOP to avoid the so-called sequester that hits Friday. Following the all-politics-is-local rule, Obama pointed out that 90,000 Virginia defense workers will face furloughs if the cuts are allowed to stand.
In a new twist, the president reacted to an emerging Republican plan to give the administration more flexibility in carrying out the $85 billion in cutbacks slated for his year. That, of course, would shift political responsibility to the White House. And Obama wasn’t buying, saying the time frame was too short to give him anything other than unpalatable choices.
“There’s no smart way to do that,” he said. “Do I close funds for disabled kids or poor kids? Do I close funding for this Navy shipyard or another one?” Repeating one of his favorite themes, he said: “We can’t just cut our way to prosperity.”
The Newport News stop is the latest move in an orchestrated rollout on the issue that is being carried out with all the precision of a presidential campaign. And some Republicans are accusing the White House of exaggerating the sequester’s impact for partisan reasons.
In a new twist, the president reacted to an emerging Republican plan to give the administration more flexibility in carrying out the $85 billion in cutbacks slated for his year. That, of course, would shift political responsibility to the White House. And Obama wasn’t buying, saying the time frame was too short to give him anything other than unpalatable choices.
“There’s no smart way to do that,” he said. “Do I close funds for disabled kids or poor kids? Do I close funding for this Navy shipyard or another one?” Repeating one of his favorite themes, he said: “We can’t just cut our way to prosperity.”
The Newport News stop is the latest move in an orchestrated rollout on the issue that is being carried out with all the precision of a presidential campaign. And some Republicans are accusing the White House of exaggerating the sequester’s impact for partisan reasons.
Sequester 101: Your idiot's guide to the nation's latest fiscal emergency.
Former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour told me that Obama is “crying wolf.”
“Does the administration have a reason to make sure a lot of bad things happen?” Barbour asks. “We’re down to the last few days, and the president gets off the golf course and says the world’s about to come to an end.”
Chris Van Hollen, a top House Democrat, dismisses such criticism. “There’s no doubt you’ll see a huge amount of disruption,” he tells me. “The timing of that is less clear.”
The Maryland congressman points to a Congressional Budget Office study that says the cutbacks will cost the country 750,000 jobs this year. “This isn’t administration propaganda,” Van Hollen says. “This is the nonpartisan, independent CBO speaking.”
Deputy White House spokesman Josh Earnest also denies any hype: “The facts are the facts. There are consequences to indiscriminate, across-the-board spending cuts…I’m not sure anybody has the evidence to indicate this is not going to happen.”
No one is minimizing the impact of $85 billion in domestic and defense cutbacks this year, once deemed so draconian that both sides assumed Congress would stop them from taking effect. But how that pain would be distributed, and how quickly it would be felt, is part of the blame game playing out in Washington. It’s all about the finger-pointing right now, since there are no negotiations about avoiding the budget-slashing that will begin at week’s end.
The administration brought out the big howitzer:
there could be security lines at the airports that last 90 minutes or more.
The rhetoric intensified on Monday, with House Speaker John Boehner charging the president with “using our military men and women as campaign props.”
The White House brought Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to the briefing room on Monday to respond to such criticism. “I’m not here to scare people,” she said. “I’m here to inform, and also to let people begin to plan -- because they’re going to see these impacts in their daily lives.”
Let’s take a minute to look at how the administration unfurled its message. The Pentagon launched the first guided missile last week: Nearly 800,000 civilian workers would be furloughed one day a week.
That was an attention-grabber.
The president himself dropped the next bomb at a White House appearance, surrounded by first responders: Criminals would go free, FBI agents would be furloughed, cops and teachers laid off, kids shut out of child care.
That didn’t move the needle. So the administration brought out the big howitzer.
There could be security lines at the airports that last 90 minutes or more.
Flights would be delayed as air traffic controllers are furloughed and fewer planes are allowed to fly. Overnight shifts would be canceled at 70 smaller airports.
Flights would be delayed as air traffic controllers are furloughed and fewer planes are allowed to fly. Overnight shifts would be canceled at 70 smaller airports.
America will be inconvenienced! What did we do to deserve this??
It was icing on the cake for the Obama team that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood—a Republican—was tapped to deliver the news.
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