# Let the sequester cuts take place, and if I perish, I perish. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 28, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632 "2013-02-28T15:19:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/41 "2013-03-01T16:20:08Z")
I think that lesson was well learned **Hentor** - there will be no more debt ceiling negotiations. It’s clean bills or government shutdown at this point. And the GOP refusing to budge on sequestration will only help build the political narrative when they go whole-hog and shut down the government entirely in a few months. ---
**Author:** ![Kepler1571](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/db5fbb/32.png) [@Kepler1571](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kepler1571)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/42 "2013-03-01T16:21:08Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I think you’re right about how it effects the Republicans and military spending but wrong about how it will effect the Democrats and social spending. It’s true that after a few months, we’ll see that we’re not getting invaded by Iranian and North Korean troops, and thus the Republican rhetoric about crippling the military will not scare many people. At the same time, we’ll see that planes aren’t falling from the sky and there are still teachers in the schools, and thus the Democratic rhetoric will be similarly defused. It’s true, as **Lobohan** said, that the sequester cuts both vital and useless federal programs. Just because a federal program is vital doesn’t mean that every penny we spend on it is vital. The truth is that virtually every federal program is bloated, with a bigger budget than necessary. Thus we can cut every federal program without fear of catastrophe. > > Perhaps the real reason our politicians have been in Armageddon mode for the past month is that they realize that if the sequester takes place, the American people may realize that we can live with the cuts, and might even start wondering if it was possible to cut more. This is actually the ideal result. Naturally, Fox and MSNBC will be running around trying to whip up atrocity stories to feed their bias, but the folks who get their news from there are already on the crazy train, so it probably will not matter. This is one reason why the GOP can never allow the return to pre-80’s levels of taxation. After a few years when the economy is still fine even though we’re not polishing John Galt’s knob, that whole scam collapses. ---
**Author:** ![Kepler1571](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/db5fbb/32.png) [@Kepler1571](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kepler1571)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/43 "2013-03-01T16:22:18Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > This is the slowest-motion train wreck I’ve ever had to watch. Meh. With the Mets it takes 162 games. I’m used to it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/44 "2013-03-01T16:37:31Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > The thing nobody is buying is the idea that this is Obama’s fault because the proposal originated in the White House. Right, right - just because the proposal originated with the White House is no reason to blame the White House for the proposal. This is just bizarre. This is double-think. It’s his idea, but he isn’t responsible for it. The PolitiFact cite that says his claim that it belongs to Congress is Mostly False means that it is Mostly True. War may not be peace yet, and freedom isn’t slavery, but ignorance is certainly strength when it comes to the federal budget. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/45 "2013-03-01T16:41:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Right, right - just because the proposal originated with the White House is no reason to blame the White House for the proposal. Congress decided it was a good idea, passed it, and hasn’t replaced it. Why is anybody supposed to care who came up with it at this stage? ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/46 "2013-03-01T16:55:26Z")
So far we have **Shodan** and **Kearson** buying the “It’s all Obama’s fault narrative”. The evidence for **Marley** ’s claim that it’s only Republican partisans buying it is growing by the hour. To add some clarity: the Politifact claim is Obama saying that “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.” That claim is obviously mostly false. Nobody is claiming that it isn’t mostly false. That is, of course, orthogonal to the claim that the sequester is something Obama caused, or supports, or is responsible for. It was the White House’s idea to avoid the calamity of a debt rating downgrade and a cudgel to perhaps goad an intransigent Congress in to doing its job. Congress failed, yet again, and here we are. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/47 "2013-03-01T16:59:07Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Right, right - just because the proposal originated with the White House is no reason to blame the White House for the proposal. Just because the proposal originated with the White House **as a crappy compromise to prevent the Republicans from forcing the United States to default on its debts** is no reason to blame the White House for the proposal. It’s one thing to talk about whose _idea_ the sequestration was. But the more important question is “Whose _fault_ is it?” ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/48 "2013-03-01T16:59:53Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > You’re wrong on the number, as has been stated. You’re wrong on the amount that has been spent on the program. The program has received roughly $56 billion since the mid-1990s. And about 80% of the trillion-plus cost of the program is the cost of actually flying the aircraft over the next half century, so you can’t simultaneously claim that the jet costs that much and that it will never fly. > > I’m not sure what the actual question is that you want to debate – I believe the sequester is really bad – but you’ve managed to cram in several glaring inaccuracies in your OP. The linked article on the F-35 is crap as well. I’m not exactly the most ardent supporter of the F-35 program or military spending in general, but the author of the article also managed to cram several glaring inaccuracies in his piece. No one has died in an F-35, the oxygen system problem happened in the F-22, not the F-35, the US won’t have 15 times(!) as many planes as China if the F-35 order is filled, the F-35 doesn’t lack the weapons systems to adequately support ground forces… the article is full of basic factual errors. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/49 "2013-03-01T17:05:51Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > So far we have **Shodan** and **Kearson** buying the “It’s all Obama’s fault narrative”. The evidence for **Marley** ’s claim that it’s only Republican partisans buying it is growing by the hour. There are two ways to read the two sentences I wrote: one is that nobody is buying that Obama came up with sequestration, and the other is that nobody is buying the idea that this is Obama’s fault just because sequestration was proposed by the White House. In context I thought it was obvious I was saying the latter because I was responding to a post that asked why Obama was being blamed. The White House did propose this idea, but Congress accepted it, passed it to force themselves to make a deal, and hasn’t replaced it. Some Republicans are now saying it’s a good and necessary idea. So how is it Obama’s fault, and why do we care where this thing originated? ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/50 "2013-03-01T17:09:37Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > Meh. With the Mets it takes 162 games. I’m used to it. I thought that with the Mets it was pretty much over by the All-Star Break. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/51 "2013-03-01T17:10:34Z")
If Congressional Republicans want to claim that it was all Obama’s idea and they don’t want it, there’s a very simple solution. Just get rid of it. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/52 "2013-03-01T17:12:24Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > Just because the proposal originated with the White House **as a crappy compromise to prevent the Republicans from forcing the United States to default on its debts** is no reason to blame the White House for the proposal. > > It’s one thing to talk about whose _idea_ the sequestration was. But the more important question is “Whose _fault_ is it?” Uh, who do you blame for offering it up? I said this earlier “I can even understand why he did what he did, he figured that the cuts looming would cause Congress to work on it, together. That didn’t happen.” and I still believe that he offered it up thinking that it would cause Congress to move. He clearly should have kept his mouth and his advisors at the White House out of it if he didn’t want blame to be laid at his feet. Now that the blame is there, he wants no part of it and that is bullshit. Now, do I find Congress blameless, of course not. But they didn’t come up with the crappy compromise, the White House pushed that.. Congress is to blame for not fixing the damn problem after the compromise was reached. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/53 "2013-03-01T17:16:28Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > If Congressional Republicans want to claim that it was all Obama’s idea and they don’t want it, there’s a very simple solution. > > Just get rid of it. Aha! Would you say the same if the tax increases hadn’t happened on the front end? I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/54 "2013-03-01T17:18:02Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > Uh, who do you blame for offering it up? The White House offered more revenues during the negotiations. Republicans rejected that. So the White House offered sequestration. Republicans agreed to it. That doesn’t make it ‘the Republicans fault’ or anything, but they agreed to it. If Republicans knew that sequestration was so awful, why didn’t they reject it? They rejected other Obama proposals, it isn’t like Boehner doesn’t know how to say no. Clearly the only relevant issue is how to avoid sequester. Obama proposed it, both parties voted for it, and here we are. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/55 "2013-03-01T17:25:36Z")
Let me be sure I get this strraight - 1.5 years ago, we passed a bill that said spending cuts would take place - and no one was prepared for them to actually take place? Why do we even bother with passing bills/laws anymore? ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/56 "2013-03-01T17:37:18Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > The White House offered more revenues during the negotiations. Republicans rejected that. > > So the White House offered sequestration. Republicans agreed to it. That doesn’t make it ‘the Republicans fault’ or anything, but they agreed to it. If Republicans knew that sequestration was so awful, why didn’t they reject it? They rejected other Obama proposals, it isn’t like Boehner doesn’t know how to say no. > > Clearly the only relevant issue is how to avoid sequester. Obama proposed it, both parties voted for it, and here we are. I agree to all of this with a couple minor caveats. The Democrats also voted on this, right? They are also to blame for failing to fix this before now, right? But him putting his head in the sand and denying that it started with him is ludicrous, and the people defending his stance are also. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/57 "2013-03-01T17:39:22Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > Aha! Would you say the same if the tax increases hadn’t happened on the front end? I doubt it. Absolutely and twice on Sunday. You seem confused about recent history. There was no tax increase deal. The tax deal was to keep the Bush tax cuts from expiring on the middle class, and Obama negotiated upwards on the level at which “middle class” could be said to end. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/58 "2013-03-01T17:43:11Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Absolutely and twice on Sunday. > > You seem confused about recent history. There was no tax increase deal. The tax deal was to keep the Bush tax cuts from expiring on the middle class, and Obama negotiated upwards on the level at which “middle class” could be said to end. I’m not going to get into semantic quibbling over whether or not it was a tax increase. Taxes collected went up. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/59 "2013-03-01T17:59:15Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > I’m not going to get into semantic quibbling over whether or not it was a tax increase. > Taxes collected went up. It’s hardly semantic quibbling. Your argument was that there was a tax-related deal that was already struck, so just doing away with the sequester now would somehow not be kosher. You even made a prediction that I would have not been for just doing away with the sequester if the tax deal hadn’t been made. But the very obvious net effect of the deal was to extend the Bush tax cuts for all but those making over $400,000. Without the deal, tax rates would have reverted to pre-Bush levels. This is not a matter of semantics. It’s a matter of knowing what happened and discussing the relevant issues based on that knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632/60 "2013-03-01T18:05:30Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > Uh, who do you blame for offering it up? > > I said this earlier “I can even understand why he did what he did, he figured that the cuts looming would cause Congress to work on it, together. That didn’t happen.” and I still believe that he offered it up thinking that it would cause Congress to move. > He clearly should have kept his mouth and his advisors at the White House out of it if he didn’t want blame to be laid at his feet. What was Obama’s the alternative? Fail to raise the debt ceiling and allow the U.S. government to default. If we agree that that alternative was entirely unacceptable, then Obama had to find some kind of compromise in order to avoid a default. And it’s the Republicans who created that situation, by refusing to simply do what needed to be done and raise the debt ceiling. The sequester is a horrible plan, but compared to a government default it was the lesser of two evils. > [@](#): > > The Democrats also voted on this, right? They are also to blame for failing to fix this before now, right? The Democrats would have raised the debt ceiling without demanding it be tied to budget cuts. The Republicans refused. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-sequester-cuts-take-place-and-if-i-perish-i-perish/651632.md?page=4)