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October 20, 2013 08:21 AM UTC

"Obamaquester" No More!

  • 9 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold reports:

[In summer 2011], the GOP and President Obama agreed to set caps on annual spending and to set in motion a bigger, broader budget cut: sequestration. This was a massive cut — $85 billion in the first year — spread across much of the federal government…

When the House GOP created a PowerPoint presentation titled “What We’ve Achieved,” these ­sequester-driven reductions in spending were trumpeted in the first slide. “For the first time since the Korean War, total federal spending has gone down for two years in a row,” the party declares, meaning fiscal 2012 and 2013. The spending cuts were also on the second slide. And the third. There were five slides total. (The other two focused on tax increases that might have happened, but didn’t.)

“It forced the spending curve downward,” Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) said. “It actually made government and Washington, D.C., finally deal with what the American people have been dealing with, and that’s having to deal with less income and revenue.” [Pols emphasis]

The large across-the-board budget cuts mandated by the “sequester” provisions of the 2011 Budget Control Act, as Fahrenthold explains, were meant to be a “booby trap” to force both sides to negotiate over future budget reductions. The agreement to set up this negotiation “incentive” came after the last great budgetary impasse between President Barack Obama and House Republicans in 2011, which led to the first-ever downgrade of the nation’s credit rating and tremendous turmoil in financial markets.

Here’s Rep. Scott Tipton, similarly praising the sequester cuts locked in by this week’s deal:

Today’s agreement includes positive steps to extend responsible spending reforms, prevent a national default on nearly $17 trillion of U.S. debt, and reopen the government. It protects the economy and sets the stage for further budget negotiations to address our nation’s spending crisis. Our nation is facing a staggering national debt, and this plan continues to address the debt by extending sequester-level spending reforms. [Pols emphasis]

But just a few short months ago, Republicans were saying something very different.

As the sequester’s mandated budget cuts were prepared to go into effect on March 1st of this year, Republicans launched a public relations campaign to deflect the blame for the resulting pain, labeling the sequester the “Obamaquester” (see video above). Local conservatives dutifully picked up the tune:

Instead of viewing the White House’s list of sequestration effects on Colorado’s families as a list of budget cuts, Coloradans should view this as a list of important topics with which the President is willing to play politics. Further, Coloradans should not be fooled by the verbal tap dancing by White House lawyers and staff. This was Obama’s idea, foisted upon Congress, [Pols emphasis] and he should take responsibility for the negative implications that follow. The question is – will the media hold his feet to the fire?

Now that Republicans have emerged from, if anything, an even greater public relations disaster than the 2011 budget debacle that led to the sequester–with only those same 2011-era budget cuts to show for it–we’re guessing they take it back? The fact is, the sequester cuts have been painful for Colorado in quantifiable ways. Progressive fiscal policy groups have been sounding the alarm since before they took effect. As the conservative blog quoted above themselves admitted, these cuts “include education, Department of Defense jobs, victims aid programs, jobs placement programs, childhood vaccines programs, domestic violence assistance, and more.” The impact of the sequester has generally been squelched, especially in Colorado, by so much other political news this year.

But forget all that, folks! What was “Obama’s fault” just a few months ago is now the GOP’s biggest win in years! It’s time to celebrate what you were told to get angry about in February.

We objectively think the Animal Farm reference is justified.

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9 thoughts on ““Obamaquester” No More!”

  1. Gee what a shock. Kind of like how the shut down was something to celebrate that wouldn't hurt a bit one minute and terrible and all Obama's fault the next. Or the way conservative think tanks came up with almost all of what's in the ACA and it was great when it was put into effect by Governor Romney but became the worst law in American history in time for the Romney presidential campaign. Even according to Romney. You mean even they don't really believe the crap that comes out of their mouths from one moment to the next? What a surprise.

  2. The problem is that absolutely no one should be trumpeting this . . . the situation is analogous to giving chemotherapy fro cancer drugs to treat an a patient for their Alzheimers . . . totally wrong prescription at the wrong time.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/opinion/krugman-the-damage-done.html?ref=paulkrugman

    We're really in big trouble when we start siding with the science deniers who also happen to be economics deniers . . .

    WTF ever happened to reality??

     

    I think

    1. Are the voters in Colorado(CO) waking up?  I carried a petition for TABOR – and Support a "stream-lined" government – it's a pity that most of "our" POLs are, only, worried about their PROFIT! 

  3. Wow, coming on the heels of the GOP's unmatched ability to dig themselves into holes the size of open pit mines on the shutdown, they deserve an Olympic Gold Medal in Turd Polishing over the Sequester.

    Even George Will's column today seems to be attempting to blame Obama for two diametrically opposed ideas 

    1. It's all Obama's fault because he refused to compromise in 2009:

    [Obama's] self-regard, the scale of which has a certain grandeur, reinforces progressivism’s celebration of untrammeled executive power and its consequent disparagement of legislative bargaining. This is why Obamacare passed without a single vote from the opposition party — and why it remains, as analyst Michael Barone says, the most divisive legislation since the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act.

    2. And it's all Obama's fault because he wanted something better, but compromised instead:

    Obama, who aspires to be Washington’s single actor, has said of his signature achievement: “I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, academically approved approach to health care, and didn’t have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it, and just go ahead and have that passed. But that’s not how it works in our democracy. Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-what-obama-and-the-tea-party-share/2013/10/18/c4243830-376f-11e3-ae46-e4248e75c8ea_story.html

    Such furious turd polishing on Will's part!  To think, there is an ever so slight chance he believes his own BS!

    It even extended into today's Faux News Sunday "Clowns on Parade Show":

    George Will: Debate ‘Entirely on Republican Terms’ After ‘So-Called Defeat’ of Shutdown

     

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/george-will-debate-entirely-on-republican-terms-after-so-called-defeat-of-shutdown/

    Besides shaking my head at the GOP spin machine's ability to deny any and all facts — past, present or future, I can only say the next round of GOP budget negotiating positions will be interesting.  

    Has the GOP finally strained their party members' credulity beyond the breaking point?

    Will they dare try the patience of the majority of Americans yet again, thus ensuring defeat in the next several election cycles?

  4. George Will used to be a brilliant, intellectual high conservative commentator with whom I rarely agreed but one of the ones I respected.  It's now been over two decades since he started to turn into a grumpy old rightie whose opinions are rarely well reasoned or connected with real world facts.

    In his case I don't think it's so much a matter of becoming a Tea Party lunatic as it is a misplaced sentimental nostalgia for an America that never existed. It's sad to see such a sharp intellect melting away into a puddle of injured feelings for the loss of a world that never was in the first place; a world of wise, well intentioned aristocrats who knew what was best for the riffraff (as well as what scotch to drink, when to drink it, what books to read and what pastimes were acceptable for a gentleman) who knew their place and accepted that any change would only come slowly enough to cause the old guard no discomfort.

  5. BC, My memories of "old school George Will",  when he published a column in Newsweek, are similar to yours; I didn't agree, but I respected.

    The difference, I think, is the advent of the widespread "talking points" – when Rove started structuring a propaganda machine, which spread the same 5-10 oversimplified, catchily worded conservative talking points (with just a bare germ of truth in them) every few days, and the conservative media and politicians would somehow all start saying the same things:

    Examples:

    • Obamacare has "death panels".
    • Republicans are fiscal conservatives, while Democrats are wasteful spenders.
    • Benghazi is the worst political scandal ever. …..etc.

    George Will used to be interesting, because he was an original thinker. Now he just has to do what every other conservative commentator does – package the same old pink slime in freshly baked rolls for public consumption. Yum.

  6. I only disagree that George Will "has to" do anything. An established celebrity columnist and author like him doesn't have to knuckle under to anyone to get published. He can say whatever he wants and this is what he wants to say. It's his own drivel and it's sad to see him writing it. 

    1. Probably the most annoying thing about Peak Politics is when any of our conservative leaning bloggers here posts a link to their site, as if 1) it were even remotely credible, and 2) anybody is even going bother to read that shit.

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