Senate GOP ponders shifting sequester power to Obama

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/senate-gop-ponders-shifting-power-to-obama-88149.html?ml=po_r


Days before the March 1 deadline, Senate Republicans are circulating a draft bill that would cancel $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts and instead turn over authority to President Barack Obama to achieve the same level of savings under a plan to be filed by March 8.

The five- page document, which has the tacit support of Senate GOP leaders, represents a remarkable shift for the party. Having railed against Senate Democrats for not passing a budget, Republicans are now proposing that Congress surrender an important piece of its Constitutional “power of the purse” for the last seven months of this fiscal year.

As proposed, lawmakers would retain the power to overturn the president’s spending plan by March 22, but only under a resolution of disapproval that would demand two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate to prevail over an Obama veto.

The proposal would require — like the sequester — that no more than $42.6 billion of the cuts come at the expense of defense programs. But the elaborate, almost Rube Goldberg construct is already provoking sharp criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike and reflects a political scramble to escape the fallout from the sequester.

[customerserviceguy]

1. As Admiral Ackbar would say

"It's a trap."

[madokie]

2. Hopefully the President won't bite

this is a trap no doubt.
they can't deal with him straight up, he kicks their sorry asses, so they've trying trickery now. What gets me is they are doing all this out in the open and people aren't out in the streets

[reformist2]

3. Doesn't Obama already have the power to decide what gets cut?

As Repugs are finding out, "across the board" cuts don't mean what they thought. They miscalculated. Again.

[Skidmore]

4. Agreeing that it is a trap and would like to point out

that the House has shifted its powers under the constitution to the Senate in regard to the purse. The larger congress has shifted war powers to the executive. Cowards all. Should such a bill come out of the Senate, the President should veto it and force the House back to do its job as defined by the constitution.

[malaise]

5. The bill must start in the ReTHUG House of Reprsentatives

Fuck them - they don't want their pen on this one, but they want to destroy entitlements.
Fuck all fucking ReTHUGs.
Bring 'em on Mr. President.