Yesterday Bob Woodward, the venerated journalist who brought down Nixon, reported that he received a veiled threat from the White House over exposing Obama’s complicity in creating sequestration cuts to spending. Woodward reported to Politico that a senior White House aide got him on the phone and launched into a furious tirade for half an hour following a Woodward column in which he called cutting defense spending “madness.” The aide later emailed Woodward with an apology, but added that Woodward would regret taking his stance on the issue. The White House said he misinterpreted the statement.
Woodward threatened by White House aide
Government reports say that the 2% cut represents a decrease in the increase in federal spending which is expected to be between 3% and 6% depending on deficits as the White House projects repeating spending $3.8 trillion or more. 2011 yielded tax revenues of $2.5 trillion plus an additional $1.3 trillion in deficits. But with tax increases 2013 the federal government expects to tax $2.9 trillion from the people and projects $900 billion in deficits.
In his latest stump speech about the sequester cuts, President Obama retreated from his declarations that government services, both federal and local, will be critically damaged or come to a halt. Instead of declaring that American’s will be left to suffer should these cuts be put into effect, he professed that people may not even notice the difference. But he insisted that the damage, though unnoticeable, will be incalculable.
President Obama backs off of sequesteria
The increase in federal spending is still in question as, for the fifth year in a row, no budget has been passed. The Democrat controlled Senate is due to vote on March 27 for continuing resolutions that have been funding the government over the last four years with $1.3 trillion deficits. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Republican Speaker John Boehner of the House have both rejected the other’s budget.
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