Obama was for the sequester before he was against it

During a press conference yesterday in Washington, President Barack Obama claimed that spending cuts — known as “sequestration” or the “sequester” — that are scheduled to take effect on March 1st would hurt the economy and slow down response times for emergency personnel.

“[I]f Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place, it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research,” claimed President Obama as emergency responders stood behind him. He added, “[T]hese cuts are not smart.  They are not fair.  They will hurt our economy.  They will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls.”

While he has laid on thick the aggression toward Republicans for the sequester, this is ultimately something that President Obama created. Oddly enough, President Obama admitted that the goal of having automatic spending cuts “was to make them so unattractive and unappealing” that Congress would make some cuts and raise taxes. Keep in mind that no legislation that clears Congress can become law without a president’s signature. As Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) recently told White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, this is “Being President 101.”

Moreover, it was President Obama who once threatened to veto “any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending.” Take a listen to President Obama in his own words in this video from the Washington Examiner:

Remember, the sequester doesn’t actually cut spending. It barely cuts the rate in growth of spending over the next 10 years. Also remember that the United States currently has a$16.5 trillion national debt and $9.492 trillion in estimated budget deficits over the next 10 years thanks to President Obama’s reckless spending binge.

These daunting fiscal problems are not something that taxes, which have already been raised on 77% of American households, can fix. Deep spending cuts will eventually have to be made. We can either take our medicine now, when the pain won’t be as bad, or later when severe economic damage could be done.

http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/12736-obama-was-for-the-sequester-before-he-was-against-it