Page 3 - Ridiculous Sequester News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Public backs the president's 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 president's plans all have a really comfortable lead there. the republicans talked a lot about learning lessons from the elections and evolving their policies. has anything really changed? >> it's not about how issues poll, alex. if we had based it solely on...

Medicare, social security, those weren't 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 these things were so bad that no one would ever let them happen. the problem is now there is an intel...

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 republicans are dug in i don't really think there's much incentive here for either side to compromise on this...

It's 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 we're going to have to lay off 800,000 civilian workers or furlough them one day a week. yesterday you had lahood, the transportation secretary come to the white house briefing room and say we're going...

Comes up or expires and they're going to have to negotiate deal on that. and it all could just be wrapped up into one. >> david, i'm 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. what's your read on that? >> very detailed reporting by bob woodward there. it's an interesting take. certainly the republicans have jumped on. it's been a debate over the last few weeks about wh...