Reply to BOB WOODWARD: Obama Is Showing 'A Kind Of Madness I Haven't Seen In A Long Time'

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The issue is NOT whether Woodward was threatened.  The issue is that Woodward wrote an article that the White House did not want "out".
Everyone is now talking about the interaction between Woodward and the White House--not what Woodward wrote.  What Woodward wrote is contrary to the White House Talking Points.  That is why Sperling got angry.

A couple of weeks ago the White House was denying that sequestration was its idea--when Woodward said it was, the White House backtracked and even Jay Carney admitted that it came from the White House (I think it was Lew's idea.)  When Woodward said that part of the deal was that taxes would be off the table, it totally demolishes the White House position.

The fact is that Obama has gotten tax increases.  There are tons of taxes in the Affordable Health Care Act and the Republicans agreed to raising taxes on the higher earners a couple of months ago---but now, he still wants increases.
Read your history, every time the GOP agrees to taxes along with spending cuts, the taxes happen and the spending cuts disappear.  Is it any wonder they want a bill with cuts?[/quote]

The funny thing is, you don't even seem to understand why this is wrong.  Thought you were being disingenuous. I apologize.[/quote]

Please elaborate on what's so wrong about this.[/quote]

Sure, I'll give you the short version:

[quote]Woodward’s book about the debt limit crisis includes the fairly inconsequential detail that the idea of using sequestration (as opposed to other policy options) as an enforcement mechanism originated in the White House. Republicans, who voted for the Budget Control Act in overwhelming numbers, argue flimsily that this detail absolves them of all blame for the coming spending cuts, and have since tried to turn Woodward into a sort of grand arbiter of the debt limit fight.

But in this case Woodward is just dead wrong. Obama and Democrats have always insisted that a balanced mix of spending cuts and higher taxes replace sequestration. It’s true that John Boehner wouldn’t agree to include new taxes in the enforcement mechanism itself, and thus that the enforcement mechanism he and Obama settled upon — sequestration — is composed exclusively of spending cuts. But the entire purpose of an enforcement mechanism is to make sure that the enforcement mechanism is never triggered. The key question is what action it was designed to compel. And on that score, the Budget Control Act is unambiguous.

First: “Unless a joint committee bill achieving an amount greater than $1,200,000,000,000 in deficit reduction as provided in section 401(b)(3)(B)(i)(II) of the Budget Control Act of 2011 is enacted by January 15, 2012, the discretionary spending limits listed in section 251(c) shall be revised, and discretionary appropriations and direct spending shall be reduced.”

Key words: “deficit reduction.” Not “spending cuts.” If Republicans wanted to make sure sequestration would be replaced with spending cuts only, that would have been the place to make a stand. Some of them certainly tried. But that’s not what ultimately won the day. Instead the, law tasked the Super Committee with replacing sequestration with a different deficit reduction bill — tax increases or no.

“The goal of the joint committee shall be to reduce the deficit by at least $1,500,000,000,000 over the period of fiscal years 2012 to 2021,” according to the BCA. The bill even provided the House and Senate instructions for advancing a Super Committee bill if it included revenue. This couldn’t be clearer. In the Super Committee’s waning hours, Republicans tried to entice Democrats into a spending-cut heavy agreement by acceding to a small amount of revenue. Democrats balked — the balance was off — but all of that just goes to show that a tax increase has always been a likely element of a replacement bill, and Republicans know it.[/quote]

(http://bit.ly/WsxVD5)[/quote]

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