Suzy Khimm reminds us where the sequester came from:
Of course, Republicans Boehner included had agreed to the deal as well. The defense cuts were part of those consequences.What’s more, House Republicans refused to agree to a debt-ceiling deal that didn’t include some kind of consequence if the supercommittee failed. The White House, conversely, would happily have signed a clean debt-ceiling increase. But the Republicans said there would be no deal if there wasn’t some kind of deficit-reducing backstop in the event the supercommittee failed. That’s where the sequester came from.
To recap:
1) House Republicans created a fake crisis around the debt ceiling.
2) House Republicans demanded spending cuts, and the creation of a Supercommittee to end their fake crisis
3) House Republicans undermined the Supercommittee negotiations, causing the committee to fail
4) House Republicans are now trying to blame President Obama for the automatic spending cuts triggered by the Supercommittee failure.
None of this ever would’ve come to pass if Repubicans hadn’t created the fake debt ceiling crisis in the first place. They set this thing in motion, and now they own it.
