FEAR OF THE #OBAMAQUESTER

Via The Hill:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) urged her colleagues to reach a compromise to prevent spending cuts through sequestration, arguing that government programs are already as lean as they can be.

"We're at the bone almost, and sequester, that is across-the-board cuts, will literally destroy us and put us in a recession," she said on the House floor Wednesday.

She called on Republicans to meet Democrats at the negotiating table and rejected the idea that President Obama delivered a partisan State of the Union address Tuesday night.

"May I ask them to take some cotton out of their ears, because in actuality, the president extended his hands of friendship," she said. "I don't want to hear the fact that the president is divisive. The president is leading, and he's led well."

Jackson Lee suggested lawmakers should take inspiration from President Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War.

"I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together. Are we going to be able to do it today to free America?"

The president, Democrats and the media will still blame Republicans if the sequester goes into effect but the truth is out now. Bob Woodward informed everyone that the sequester was Team Obama's idea and Obama’s propagandist, Jay Carney, was forced by Bret Baier into admitting it on Tuesday.

BRET BAIER: Fair to say, but it was the president’s idea… You concede that point, right?

JAY CARNEY: What I will concede is that we were looking and the Republicans were looking for a trigger around which to build the mechanism to get us out of default possibility and the sequester was one of the ideas put forward, yes, by the president’s team. 

The Dems would like to forget that this was Obama’s idea all along.  Their game has always been to manufacture situations that would enable them to demonize the GOP. In fact, six months ago Obama accused Republicans of “trying to wriggle out” of their sequester agreement:

If the Republicans were "wriggling" then, they aren't now.  Politico reported yesterday morning that the GOP has reached a consensus that the sequester needs to take place as an opening round of spending reductions, especially in the absence of any action from Senate Democrats:

Top congressional Republicans predicted Wednesday that the sequester will hit at the end of the month – the latest chapter in the series of budget battles that have stymied Washington in the last few years.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of Senate Republican leadership, said “I think the sequester’s gonna happen” and said the Pentagon needs more discretion to target the budget cuts so they don’t hit defense programs indiscriminately.

“The right thing to do is reduce spending,” Blunt said at POLITICO’s post-State of the Union event. “The wrong way to do it is with across-the-board cuts.”

And Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, said at POLITICO’s event that there is a “greater chance that they’ll be implemented than not at this point.” He argued that the GOP-led House has been out front on the sequester conundrum, noting that it twice passed legislation in the last Congress to avert the budget cuts.

“Obviously nothing was done” by the Senate and the White House, Lankford said. “We’re in the same boat now.”

Yesterday Paul Ryan made similar points on CBS, telling Charlie Rose that while Barack Obama complained about his own budget demand now that it’s about to hit, he hasn’t offered any alternatives:

In an appearance on "CBS This Morning" Wednesday, the chairman of the House Budget Committee condemned what he calls economic "brinksmanship" practiced by the president and Democrats in the Senate.

Ryan said the sequester, which would go into effect next month, is likely, "because the president hasn't put a budget on the table. The Senate hasn't passed a budget in four years ... Don't forget that it's the president who first proposed the sequester and it's the president who designed the sequester as it is now designed."

"We have acted in the House. The president has not. The Senate has not and therefore ... I think it's going to happen."

The sequester, agreed upon by lawmakers last summer as part of the solution to a bitter fight over the debt ceiling, was designed to be so drastic that both sides would be forced to reach an alternate agreement on deficit reduction. So far, that hasn't happened.

I say that the House GOP should continue to stand firm and call Obama's very cynical bluff.  They've made efforts to address the situation.  Obama and the Democrats have not, except to tell lies and rely on the Establishment Media to crank up the propaganda machine.  It's a fact that the original "really bad idea" was put forward by the White House.  TIME TO MAKE A STAND!