TPM: Bait And Switch: GOP Leaders Renege On Debt Limit Deal Defense Cuts

[City Lights]

Brian Beutler
February 3, 2012, 5:57 AM

Republican leaders in Congress have all but reneged on a key agreement they reached with the White House last summer rather than reconsider their unwavering stance against new tax revenue.

Relations between the Obama administration and the congressional GOP were already just about as bad as can be. But even so, this sets a precedent future Congresses and White Houses will remember when partisan mismatches force them to strike deals and govern.

“I’ve got concerns about the sequester,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters Thursday. “I’ve made that pretty clear. And replacing the sequester certainly has value. The defense portion of the sequester, in my view, would clearly hollow our military. The Secretary of Defense has said that, members of Congress have said it. But the question I would pose is, where’s the White House? Where’s the leadership that should be there to ensure that this sequester does not go into effect.”

“Sequester” is budget-speak for across-the-board cuts. But the cuts he’s talking about were part of a deal he recently claimed he’d honor. Here’s what he’s talking about.

Read the entire piece at TPM.com

Republicans suck!

[rfranklin]

1. Hoist by their own petard...

A phrase especially appropriate for the Republican bomb throwers--
Meaning

Injured by the device that you intended to use to injure others.

Origin

The phrase 'hoist with one's own petar[d]' is often cited as 'hoist by one's own petar[d]'. The two forms mean the same, although the former is strictly a more accurate version of the original source. A petard is, or rather was, as they have long since fallen out of use, a small engine of war used to blow breaches in gates or walls. They were originally metallic and bell-shaped but later cubical wooden boxes. Whatever the shape, the significant feature was that they were full of gunpowder - basically what we would now call a bomb.

The device was used by the military forces of all the major European fighting nations by the 16th century. In French and English - petar or petard, and in Spanish and Italian - petardo.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hoist%20by%20your%20own%20petard.html

[julian09]

2. It is the law, not just deal.

they can only change it, with another law.
Obama already said that he would veto any law that would change that.
All the repubilcans have to do is raise revenue or taxes, to prevent deep cuts in defense spending. They want everything their way, just cuts on programs, no taxes. What do you expect Obama to do cut safety net in half. He is putting pressure on them to raise revenue. Don't forget the first half that already passed was all cuts, no revenue increases. If repugs can't raise revenue, they are to blame for sequester.