RUSH: No, Mr. Snerdley, it isn’t that complicated. It is nothing more than this. Obama wants to be constantly campaigning and demagogueing. He does not want to be seen as governing. If he is seen governing going crisis to crisis to crisis, he’s failing. His leadership would be called into question, so he can’t ever be seen as governing. He’s constantly campaigning, demagoguing, and fighting against mythical foes. That’s what this sequester business is all about. It’s not even about the sequester. It’s not about $85 billion, not when you peel all the layers of the onion away.
This is really about much more than $85 billion and much more than mythical cuts. But Obama cannot compromise because that would put his name on some sort of firm policy and agreement to deal with one of these crises. Now, he’ll govern when it comes to Obamacare and he’ll govern when it comes to green energy, but these crises that he manufactures, he will not be seen as governing on those. They will never end! He can’t afford for these crises to be solved. He can’t afford for the crises to be ended.
He certainly can’t afford his name or his fingerprints on them, because then he can’t keep doing more crises. The crises only work if the first one before it didn’t get resolved, and the next one doesn’t get resolved, and it’s why the next one happened! It’s because none of ’em ever got resolved. Now, why didn’t they get resolved? It’s because the Republicans won’t work with him. The Republicans won’t compromise, they won’t work with him, and so all these crises linger and they never get solved.
That leads to the next crisis and the next, and pretty soon we got nothing more than a bunch of crises. So the Politico has this story by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen called, “Obama, the Puppet Master,” and here is Jim VandeHei himself. You know what? Before I do this I’ve got a couple sound bites that deal with the sequester business, and it involves a slipup because this whole thing — this whole crisis — was started by Obama. The sequester’s his idea. This is something that you low-information voters need to know. CNN lets the cat out of the bag.
Here is Wolf Blitzer and Gloria Borger this morning on CNN’s Newsroom.
BLITZER: Gloria, explain why — if this is such a horrible idea, these forced spending cuts —
BORGER: (chortling) Yeah, I know.
BLITZER: — why did the White House come up with this plan in 2011 to begin with?
BORGER: If you notice, Wolf, the president kept calling this “a manufactured crisis.” Well, in fact, it was manufactured right here in Washington by the president of the United States.
RUSH: Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Uh-oh! That is a breach of news media security right there. See, if we had background checks of journalists, we mighta been able to prevent this massive trigger puller and this bomber, Borger, from letting the truth leak out. This is way too much ammo! Borger was given too much ammo, and she was given an automatic weapon to just fire and fire and fire away. This is more than one shot, ’cause it’s Blitzer, too. “Gloria, explain why — if this is such a horrible idea … did the White House come up with this…?”
Borger: “If you notice, Wolf, the president kept calling this ‘a manufactured crisis.’ Well, in fact it was manufactured, right here in Washington by the president!” But Christine Romans attempted to set things straight. She is the economics correspondent at CNN. Blitzer turned to her said, “Christine, take a look at the big picture on the economy here. If these forced spending cuts go into effect, as Rand Paul points out, this year it will be a projected cut of about $85 billion out of a budget that’s nearly $4 trillion. So how much of an impact would it really have on economic growth and the economy?”
ROMANS: It would be a drag on the economy. The Congressional Budget Office says you’d lose about 750,000 jobs because of this. The point is this is no way to run a country. This is no way to run a business and no way to run a country. You don’t just lop off 9% (sic) on your budget just like that. You do it with priorities. You do it with consensus. You do it with an eye to investing in the future, making sure that you don’t hurt jobs. And that’s not what Congress is doing here. What Congress is — is doing is basically forgoing the — the day-to-day budget operations that it’s supposed to be doing and doing brinksmanship every three months, and that certainly is not good for — for running a country and certainly growing an economy.
RUSH: Again, I’m just at a total loss here. It would be best if I not comment at all on this. I’m trying not to insult Ms. Romans here, but this… Wolf got it right in the question. We’re talking about $85 billion. By the way, cut that in half because half that’s defense and half that’s social spending. So a total $85 billion out of a budget that’s nearly $4 trillion? It’s chump change! You know, Christine just heard Borger say that it’s the president’s idea so she has to come in there set ’em straight by blaming Congress.
But 750,000 jobs lost because of this? So 750,000 jobs divided by $45 billion… It’s not true, and it’s not possible. There aren’t 750,000 jobs being cut. Again, this is journalistic malpractice. It’s malfeasance. This is just embarrassingly wrong! “This is no way to run a business and no way to run a country. You don’t just lop off 9% on your budget just like that.” This is not 9% of the budget! It’s barely 2%! But what do you mean businesses don’t just cut like that? The place that she works is doing this!
“You do it with priorities. You do it with consensus. You do it with an eye to investing in the future, making sure that you don’t hurt jobs.” What the…? The first thing that gets cut is always jobs! This is embarrassing, just profoundly embarrassing. But, anyway, CNN had it out there that it’s Obama’s idea.
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