Page 2 - Ridiculous Sequester News Today

Public backs the presidents plans for all of the biggest issues, is he really just giving the people who they voted for? joining me now is tony fratta, white house press secretary under president george w. bush and morris reid of gbr group. good to see you both. >> hey, alex. >> tony, on the deficit, guns, immigration, climate change, the presidents plans all have a really comfortable lead there. the republicans talked a lot about learning lessons from the elections and evolving their policies. ...

Medicare, social security, those werent touched and food stamps which usually republicans like to cut those were left off the table and are not subject to the sequester. meanwhile there were these sweeping defense cuts which a lot of people on the left favored. the problem for democrats, of course, is that the other across the board cuts will hit a lot of programs like home heating, things that are really important to particularly leb al mention. everybody has some pain. but the idea was that th...

Raise taxes another penny. so does neither party have incentive to resolve the sequester fight quickly? >> you know, nationally in that same pew poll it showed that republicans in the house of representatives had about 25% of the american support. but back in their districts they are very popular. and they have campaigned on this issue of not raising taxes, not getting new revenue because they think every time we get new revenue the president just spends it. so democrats are dug in and republica...

Its not clear where the republicans in the house stand. >> david, what about the political calculation here? as well as a policy calculation? where does the white house fall on both? >> you saw, alex, this week the president came out on tuesday and he had an event with first responder emergency responders saying their budgets are going to be cut. then the pentagon came out the next day and said were going to have to lay off 800,000 civilian workers or furlough them one day a week. yesterday you ...

Comes up or expires and theyre going to have to negotiate deal on that. and it all could just be wrapped up into one. >> david, im sure you read the article in your paper penned by bob woodward in which he writes that it was in fact then omb director jack lew who came up with the sequester idea. in fact he has the exact time and date when they first pitched it to senator harry reid, july 27th, 2011. whats your read on that? >> very detailed reporting by bob woodward there. its an interesting tak...

It doesnt matter how much prose tries to sweet talk them thats not the problem. its the fundamental difference on issues. >> okay. lauren fox, perry bacon jr., nice talk with youth wii you y. thanks so much. the effects of sequester that could show up at dinnertime. im going to speak with congresswoman particular sha blackburn about what the gop can do to deal with cuts. the windy city got about four inches of heavy snow, the most accumulation in the northern suburbs. moving to kansas, the s...

Nails the sequester and government funding into one bill and has some spending cuts but not the kind of draconian ones in the sequester. the core issue is at taxes. taxes taxes taxes. the republicans do not want to increase taxes twice in three months. the president is basically saying, i want on raising taxes more and im going to keep insisting upon that. and the public is with me because most polls so that the public would like a deal that includes tax increases as well as spending cuts. so th...

Kristen. lets talk about the president, what hes doing this weekend to help broker some sort of a deal to avoid the sequester taking effect on friday. >> reporter: alex, good afternoon. the president says hes going to have conversations with members of congress and throughout the week. but so far the limited conversations they have had have yielded no results. both sides are dug in it seems increasingly likely the sequester will kick in. on friday president obama met with the prime minister of j...

Republicans with just six days until the painful across the board budget cuts take effect, if no deal can be reached to avert the sequester. >> are republicans in congress really willing to let these cuts fall on our kid schools and mental health care just to protect tax loopholes for corporate jet owners? are they really willing to slash military health care and the border patrol just because they refuse to eliminate tax breaks for big oil companies? are they seriously prepared to inflict more ...

Lawmakers as being on vacation when they dealing with the the sequester. its hanging over the economy. and you say like the airplane we are flying is going down and were taking a break to watch the in-flight movie. so what are you talking about? is this sort of a lack of urgency from both sides? because theres no incentive for democrats nor republicans to cut a deal here? >> i am not saying that at all, alex. im saying that the house leadership on the republican side, which controls the schedule...