Page 43 - The Sequester News Today

A normal first speech for a senator is usually a proactive forward-looking speech. were not in normal times. the effects that this sequester will have on the country and the effects it will have on my commonwealth are so significant and severe that i do feel compelled to speak a little earlier than i otherwise might have. well, that was the new senator from virginia, tim cain, giving his first floor speech. he did it this week and focused on how the sequester will hurt virginia, a sign of the ...

Couple of different ways he also said this a couple minutes later. >> starting tomorrow, everybody here, all the folks who are cleaning the floors at the capital. now that congress has left, somebody will be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the garbage. they will have less pay. the janitors, security guards. they just got a pay cut. they got to figure out how to manage that. thats real. >> bret: the architect of the capitol says its not real. "we do not anticipate furloughs f...

Them to be not true. now, well start here with secretary duncan last sunday. go through the middle of the week and end with what he said today. watch. >> there are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, getting noticed that cant come back this fall. >> were confident that the teachers are getting pink slips that you said. >> i know that district, the district they had an earlier notification than most so the county in west virginia, but not the vast majority of them will be rolling o...

Loophole to help reduce the deficit. >> youre saying this is a republican problem not one that you bear any responsibility for? >> well, julie give me an example of what i might do. i am not a dictator. im the president. >> the president got his tax hikes on january 1. this discussion about revenue in my view is over. its about taking on the spending problem here in washington. >> bret: well, we have official word now that the president will sign and authorize the sequester to go in to effect. a...

Has change -- the president has changed the argument here. now, is that a felony? is that a big deal? no. but its the reality. >> its not a felony or a big deal, its just not true. the fact is that the president said that the sequester was never meant to go forward. and the president said the way to solve it has -- >> oh, but it has. >> -- is includes revenue and entitlement reforms. as weve discussed here, thats the only way that it can move forward. he still believes that. thats what he said a...

>> you need a sip of that? >> we have all day. we have three hours. no, im truly curious. >> republicans support a balance add approach. >> so republicans have taken the president at his word that he supports a balance add approach, so they support a balanced approach, too. what have we had, the fiscal cliff, and now we have sequester. the president decided, and congress decided, that the fiscal cliff, instead of being a balance of tax increases and spending cuts would be 100% tax increases. so ...

Cuts, it seems to me hes going to feel its incumbent on him to rectify it as far as he can. otherwise hes being derelict in his duty as president. he cant let an aircraft carrier rust to pieces or something like that. he is going to have to fix it up. >> i would say, john, your client has an interesting analysis in todays "washington post." neither side, i mean, the white house has sort of been offered some more power in terms of determining how bad or where these cuts hit. and they dont want to...

Sequester about who had political lemppli political leverage. republicans thought they had a certain amount of leverage. now were past this day, and were heading into some other things, right? the continuing resolution, the debt ceiling coming up over the course of the next couple months. what happens in terms of leverage now going forward? who has the whip hand coming out of this and heading into those big battles? >> i dont happen to think its clear. because the one thing that republicans have...

Better conclusion. >> you think about whats happened here in these last two battles, there are two things that are kind of interesting. one is that republicans who had ever accepted a tax increase for a very long time did in december under force, but they did. now youve learned of the sequester thing is that what was supposed to keep this from happening on the republican side was republicans were supposed to be so concerned about defense cuts that they would never let the sequester happen. so we...

Your mind that you would be willing to replace it with cuts only, basically break from the president and say, you know what? this sequester has done so poorly, if we could get them because of their own political reasons to support any deal, fine. heres a replacement cuts-only plan. >> i think that hurts the economy and defense and other key priorities. take a look at what other countries are experiencing going with a cuts-only approach. there is a strong likelihood that would make our economy wo...