Page 2 - The Sequester News Today

Surprise you. that may have worked a little better than this. now i think theyre stuck with figuring out incremental things they can do to fix the problems with obama care. >> the worry was that you would have the death spiral. that insurance companies would say hey, lets get out of this. >> they would vote to repeal it, say its not happening for a couple years. >> the sequester, the notion that people would work together if you force them to work together, im not convinced they would have will ...

54 billion in the coming fiscal year. for the pentagon, that would be about a 10% increase in defense spending. good idea? >> i think it is really important that we increase defense spending because it has been artificially kept low by the sequester, by these artificial caps that reduce defense spending below what was necessary to keep the united states safe. but heres the problem. at the same time, the trump administration is proposing massive cuts to diplomacy and development, more than a t...

Growing within the republican party and within the military intelligencia saying mr. president you cant cut the state department funding and argue that youre increasing the defense spending and make america safer. the two go hand in hand. ill be as curious about republican reaction as anything else. >> its a shift. i dont know how you describe it, michael, the shift that says all right, there are a lot of people you can agree or disagree whether you want more military. experienced people say the...

There has been some griping over the course of the years, but eventually people came to and said we got to move this forward. whats really happened recently its a very important point. a lot of these house republicans, they come from districts where amtrak plays no role. so essentially their entire model is it doesnt affect me i dont hear about it at home, i dont care about it, its another big spend government boondoggle that we do not need. if you talk to republicans from the northeast, a lot o...

Spending i would cut domestic spending, the exact same amount. that separates some conservatives in this race. there are conservatives several who are running or may run who say, oh increase defense at all costs. i will increase defense spending but only if you pay for it by cutting other stuff. >> if you cut a penny across the board, does that mean you cut medicare social security? in other words, in real 2015 dollars, next year, its going to be a penny less across the board with any exception?...

Board with any exception? >> i think what you have to do is throw that out and say, we either do it 1% across the board or maybe some programs cut 100% of. i consider most of the commerce department to be corporate welfare. i would cut every bit of it. cut 100% of the department of commerce. maybe so i dont have to cut the social security if somebody who lives on social security. there are ways of doing it not across the board but if you cant decide on it like the sequester, you dont put a budge...

Social security wouldnt have a deaf sit or cause a problem for the budget. because we know the government spent all the money, and thats what happens if we lift the cap, the revenue does not come in, goes out the door, and spends special interest projects. it wont go towards our priorities, wont go to basic research or infrastructure, what you think are important, but special interest drives money in washington which is why spending caps are so important. john: skeptical of the think tank and so...

Spouse magazine says, quote, this is essentially the secretary of defenses own version of the sequester. lets just cut it off at the knees and screw whoever it hurts. thats not a very wholistic approach. joining me now is colonel jack jacobs, medal of honor recipient and msnbc analysis and debra blabbert with blue star families. blue star families is also speaking out against the cuts. thank you both for joining us. debra, let me first start with you, because i think you talked to many families ...

People who are in, time to sell? >> dana, i think it is not too late. what the stock market is trying to tell us is that weve all been way too gloomy. we had good reason to be gloomy. as we sat here last year at this time remember we were debating whether congress would get us over the fiscal cliff, that was new years holiday. eight weeks later, the sequester. then the government shutdown in the fall. there were a lot of reasons to look at the economy and look at the government and think it is g...

>> absolutely. when we had the budget caps that we passed in 2011 which people called the sequester, s & p said they were inadequate and they downgraded our debt, so weve taken something that even in 2011 people thought wasnt enough, and we abandoned, it so really -- i think the number one threat to our national security and to our country is our debt, and by going through with this budget motion, everybody wants to be all giddy and joyful. its a compromise. its pragmatic. yeah, but its a compro...