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Forbes: The President Wanted Sequestration

'[President Obama] made sure his administration couldn't talk about it, couldn't plan for it'

February 20, 2013

Rep. Randy Forbes (R., Va.) said President Obama wanted sequestration and made sure his administration could not prepare for it Wednesday on Fox News. Forbes cited the various "doomsday scenarios" offered by the administration as evidence the lack of preparation for the possibility of sequester was designed to pressure the GOP ahead of the March 1 deadline:

MARTHA MACCALLUM: Let's kind of break this down a little bit. The president is basically saying that he believes that Republicans should pass a stopgap measure and go for a bigger deal what he says would be a balanced combination of increases in revenue come from tax loopholes, eliminating those, and spending cuts ostensibly. Although we haven't really seen them.

RANDY FORBES: Well, the that's the key, Martha. You know the president wanted sequestration. It was his proposal. I thought it was a bad idea. Voted against it over a year ago, but the president won and got it. Then the president signed it into law. He didn't have to sign it into law, he did. And for over a year, Martha, from August 2011 through the end of last year the president did nothing to stop it. In fact, he even made sure his administration couldn't talk about it, couldn't plan for it. As late as September the Pentagon was saying they were still trying to understand what the law was. In December they hadn't started. And just a few weeks ago they start coming out now with all these "doomsday scenarios." The reality is that the president could have stopped it. The House of Representatives has passed not one, but two bills that would have stopped it. The Senate has done nothing. And Martha, when the president talks about a balanced budget, most Americans think what he means is that we balance the amount of money coming in with the amount of money coming out, that's not what the president talks about with balance.