President Obama's Speech on Sequestration That He Needs to Give

[louis c]

Good Evening, my fellow Americans. As you know, we are facing some drastic budget cuts in the next few days that could hamper our fragile economic recovery, or even stop it all together. If these cuts take place, it could even cause us to enter a second recession in 5 years.

First, let me give you a little background on how we got here. We, as a nation, faced the prospect of not raising our debt ceiling in August of 2011. That result, according to nearly every independent economist, could have caused an economic calamity.

As a result of the deal I made with House Republicans, a bi-partisan group of Senators and Congressmen would try to come up with a compromise deal, or Grand Bargain. If they failed, these very drastic cuts would loom on the horizon. Cuts in defense spending, cuts to education, cuts that would reach the very heart of our safety net and weaken our security. A meat ax approach that we all agreed no one wanted. That would give us 18 months to reach an agreement. As it turned out, the bi-partisan Congressional Committee could not reach an accord, the 18 months have passed without an agreement, and we have now reached the horizon and another economic crisis fast approaches.

I have tried my best to reach a balanced agreement of closing loopholes for the very wealthy among us and I am open to agreeing on common sense budget reductions. Everything is on the table.

However, the Republicans want to rewrite history and try to play a "blame game". Speaker Boehner says the the sequester that we face was solely my idea. In fact, Speaker Boehner declared that the actual agreement gave him, and I quote "98% of what he wanted" http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-20086598/boehner-i-got-98-percent-of-what-i-wanted/.

However, If the Republicans want to disavow this sequester deal, than I suggest we just repeal it. I will recommend to the Senate to take up that repeal immediately, and if it passes the Senate and the Republican House, I will sign that repeal.

We can avoid sequestration, and with it the dire consequences it will bring, and reopen negotiations with a balanced approach to deficit reduction without threatening our recovery. All it takes is common sense and a will to reach a common goal.

Thank you for listening. Good Evening and God Bless the United States of America.

[louis c]

1. This is a political win-win

If the Republicans bite, and repeal the sequester, Obama gets the debt ceiling increase in 2011 for free. He got the tax hikes on the wealthy for free. he will eat the Republicans lunch--twice.

If the republicans refuse to bite, they will own the sequester and Obama has turned the tables on them as the cuts will be soley owned by the teabag, dominated House.

I say put them in this box.