Rush remembered something today that many of us have forgotten, and that is that Obama told the Des Moines Register in an ‘off the record interview’ back in October of last year that the sequester was part of the grand bargain he had been trying to get with Republicans, and he was excited about it.
Here’s the transcript:
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Rick, let me answer you short term and long term. In the short term, the good news is that there’s going to be a forcing mechanism to deal with what is the central ideological argument in Washington right now, and that is: How much government do we have and how do we pay for it?
So when you combine the Bush tax cuts expiring, the sequester in place, the commitment of both myself and my opponent — at least Governor Romney claims that he wants to reduce the deficit — but we’re going to be in a position where I believe in the first six months we are going to solve that big piece of business.
It will probably be messy. It won’t be pleasant. But I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I’ve been offering to the Republicans for a very long time, which is $2.50 worth of cuts for every dollar in spending, and work to reduce the costs of our health care programs.
And we can easily meet — “easily” is the wrong word — we can credibly meet the target that the Bowles-Simpson Commission established of $4 trillion in deficit reduction, and even more in the out-years, and we can stabilize our deficit-to-GDP ratio in a way that is really going to be a good foundation for long-term growth. Now, once we get that done, that takes a huge piece of business off the table.
He got the Bush tax cuts and he got his sequester. So now he’s gotten his grand bargain…and yet he’s been Chicken Little ‘the sky is falling’ and ‘Armageddon is coming’ for the last 2 months. And now he’s trying to use it as a tool to blame Republicans for the bad economy.
Rush says we have a real Jekyll and Hyde going on here. Listen: