White House Sequester Moves Puzzle Allies

[xchrom]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/katenocera/white-house-sequester-moves-puzzle-allies



It's a bad vote and almost all of us voted for it because we don't want people hurt or inconvenience at the airport. But the precedent is that you are identifying priorities: 'I don't want passengers inconvenienced' is to some extent a greater priority than Pell grants, Meals on Wheels, Head Start," said Rep. Raul Grijalva, who voted for the fix. "It's a precedent that speaks more to the priorities of Congress and the Administration in terms of who is getting hurt by the sequester."

This week was not the first time Democrats on the Hill have been bewildered by White House moves on the sequester. A month ago, while all the talk about sequestration was about the canceled White House tours — another fight Republicans viewed as a triumph — a top Democratic Senate aide joked, "Have they been messaging on the sequester?"

"I like to think they have some master plan they just haven't told us about yet," one House Democratic aide told BuzzFeed Friday.
This week, while the White House's dire sequestration predictions appeared finally to be coming true, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Obama was open to legislation that only solved the flight delays caused by the budget cuts. While he also said the plan was not the White House preference, Carney's signal that the White House was ready to go for the plan to fix flight delays caused faces to hit palms on Capitol Hill.

[Cali_Democrat]

1. I've said it before and I'll say it again

Obama is one of the worst negotiators of all time. The flight delays were a huge card that could have been played, instead Obama just tears it up, lights it on fire and it can never be used again.

Many poor Americans can't even afford to fly.

So Congress gets their punctual flights as they head off for vacation and rounds of golf, but programs like meals on wheels and head start are still getting the axe.

[xchrom]

2. i have the thought that it actually means something to be a democrat.

now a days -- just about any one with any crazy thought can be a democrat.

the meaning is just lost -- the tent got so big -- it collapsed.

[byeya]

24. To me, it means something positive to be a democrat(small 'd') but doesn't mean much

to be a capital 'D' Democrat in Obamaland.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. Absolutely.

What the heck is going on in the White House? Who is doing strategic planning? Benedict Arnold? Mickey Mouse? Latka Gravas?

[djean111]

4. Hey - Latka had a heart of gold and never stopped to weigh the difference between doing good

and political maneuvering. Plus maybe Latka's idea of good doesn't quite sync up with Washington's idea of good.
Good for whom? is the question of the day.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. That is true

But he did "clueless" so well. Much like the Oval Office.

[Laelth]

7. Spot on. Flight delays hurt rich people.

If we want to get anything done to combat the lingering recession and to help ordinary Americans, rich people need to suffer a little too. That's how we get their attention. That's how we get something done.

It appears that Obama wants to insure that the rich do not suffer. That makes many of us suspicious. Perhaps it's just poor negotiating skills. Or, perhaps something more sinister is going on.

-Laelth

[Carolina]

13. He's not a bad negotiator

He's horrible! He doesn't even TRY to negotiate.

He concedes, concedes, concedes! And he always tries to please repukes, while turning his back on those that "brung him"

I can no longer stand to see or hear him on TV, no matter the event... even muted his blathering at the Boston memorial.

[sabrina 1]

18. Exactly! He knew they wanted this fixed. They handed him an ace and instead of playing it

you could say he folded. But I don't think that is true. That would be presuming he was opposed to that fix without asking for 'compromise'.

Someone who actually was opposed to just doing that would have gone to work with his party, which holds a second ace, they have a majority in the Senate, offered to support their 'cause' IF, and ONLY IF, they agreed to an end to the cuts to Meals on Wheels and several other issues that are harmful to the poor and working class.

Such a person would fill the new bill with everything they could think of that benefits the people, knowing they will have to remove one or two.

Use the huge megaphone the WH has to let the public know what is going on, how the president is ready to propose 'fixing' SEVERAL things caused by Sequestration while giving Republicans what THEY seem to ONLY interested, making sure they can get out of DC as fast as possible to go play golf etc.

Every day until they cave, he should go before the public, telling them of the progress he is making, shaking his head, 'I don't really understand the problem, I AM GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT, but I also want SOMETHING FOR ALL OF YOU in return.

And do not give in!! Let them wait at the Airport because it appears these impostors we have in DC can't IMAGINE or EMPATHIZE with adverse conditions affecting others. The way to teach them a little about how it feels to be 'inconvenienced' is to inconvenience THEM.

But as I said, you would have to want to do this.

[KoKo]

23. +1

[Marr]

21. He's not an idiot.

He just doesn't want the things you assume he does.

Obama is a brilliant politician. He's masterfully instituted austerity in the US-- an approach that's not only been discredited, but is hugely unpopular with everyone but his beloved 1%er constituency-- and he didn't even get his hands dirty.

Now THAT is some twelve dimensional chess.

[whatchamacallit]

27. Yep, his base are the unwitting pawns, on board for every sacrifice play. n/t

[LuvNewcastle]

30. That's the truth of it.

[AverageJoe90]

33. Not even close. n/t

[Quantess]

34. Pretty much. (no text)

[enjoyingyourpeasyet]

6. Perhaps the President does not know or understand the difference between compromise and capitulation

[dballance]

31. Enough w/ the Obama Bashing Already

I'm sure that our President, a man with degrees from Columbia and Harvard Law, know the difference between compromise and capitulation. Yes, fixing the FAA furloughs was a bad move. But do you want the conversation for the next six months to be about long lines at the airport or do you want it to be about something meaningful?

[enjoyingyourpeasyet]

32. GWB has degrees from Harvard and Yale is there some point you are trying to make?

The conversation will never move to something meaningful as you say as long as the Democratic Party leader continues to do very stupid things over and over again just to placate the loons on the right in what he call bipartisanship.

[OneGrassRoot]

8. I admit that I am confused as to who is doing, and not doing, what regarding the huge mess.

The only thing I know is that NO ONE in the admin or Congress is doing enough to stem the suffering all around, when there are ways to do so.

I just stumbled across the President's Saturday morning address and it speaks to your OP, so I'm inserting here.

K&R

[99Forever]

9. Pissing off those of us that voted for this guy...

... seems to be the primary goal of the White House.


It's working extraordinarily well.

[DCBob]

10. "What if there was a crash"

That thought is what got everyone's vote and Obama's signature.

[Ikonoklast]

12. Bingo. Everyone else entirely misses this.

If there was a crash, the other side would be screaming it was all on Obama because he refused to staff the FAA.

That "Only rich people fly" or " Rich people were inconvenienced" is a total bullshit meme, millions of non-rich people, ordinary citizens fly every day, for business and personal reasons.

I would venture to say that the vast majority of people that fly are not "rich".

[Carolina]

15. no one cared about "what if there was crash"

when Reagan fired PATCO. He just did it as a first step in breaking unions and never looked back. Yet he's a hero... to some (definitely not me).

Obama is weak and stands for nothing, certainly nothing that matters to the "little people," many of whom stood in long lines to vote for him.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

16. Nice spin.

Then why was this put in the sequester in the first place?

[Hugin]

11. This vote violated the "spirit" of the sequester.

It was supposed to be 10% across the board cuts and now Congress is tweaking the cuts. They didn't fix it by adding more money to the DoT. Instead, they said the money should be moved from elsewhere in the Department. Where? Which rural bridge may fall or what rural rail crossing remains unprotected, etc?

[UnrepentantLiberal]

14. And you'll, you'll...

fix it for them, by golly.

Crowley said that there would be more trouble down the road that would be "politically difficult to swallow" but Congress needed to approach the sequester in a "holistic" way.

"Today it's FAA, tomorrow it'll be something else that my Republican colleagues don't like...

Still think Obama is the "best president of our lifetime"?

[JTFrog]

36. Good riddance to you, Sir. n/t

[Buns_of_Fire]

17. "the plan was not the White House preference"

Are any of them? Saying over and over that 'this is not my ideal plan' tends to make me wonder if the public will EVER be exposed to whateverthehell the 'ideal plan' IS.

[jsr]

19. WYSIWYG

What you SEE is what you get. Disregard the speeches, as usual.

[woo me with science]

20. Boy,the "allies" sure take a while to catch on,

don't they.

[forestpath]

22. Why should this surprise anyone? When Obama proposed SS cuts that spoke louder

than words just how much he cares about the vulnerable.

[Fire Walk With Me]

25. Obama is not a Democrat. THAT is the plan. We've been screwt. n/t

[Seeking Serenity]

26. Look, the political fact of the matter is

that the WH thought the sequester would be a replay of the '95 government shutdown, where the public blamed the GOP for the shutdown. But that's not what is happening today.

[BethanyQuartz]

28. Maybe it's time to stop relying on our so-called leaders

Maybe it's time to organize an airport sit-in. Organize it, then bus in the elderly and the kids, and the students who have been hurt by these cuts. Time to protest these sneaky austerity measures before it gets even worse and more lopsided in favor of wealth and power. Needs to be done all at once and in a big way though, if only a few trickle in to a few airports they'll just get arrested and swept under the rug.

[TheKentuckian]

29. How does Grijalva not get he is a big part of the problem himself?

How the hell do you go along with nothing in exchange and then fucking wring your hands about it? Make the Administration and "Leadership" come up with some sound answers at minimum. Don't tell me your befuddled because there isn't an excuse in the world for it. DEMAND SOME FUCKING ANSWERS!!!!! Your job isn't to be a puzzled rubberstamp.

The Progressive Caucus is beyond worthless because the word "no" isn't in their vocabulary, there is no power to be had without the ability and more importantly the willingness to say NO. Being unwilling to say "no" in the final analysis means you don't even have to be considered, much less bargained with because in the end you will be an "aye" no matter what goes down.

[Laelth]

35. +1 n/t

-Laelth