Obama's Sequester Gamble: What If Nobody Notices?
President Obama has for weeks warned congressional Republicans and the American public of the dangers facing the nation from the sequester budget cuts.
Failing to reach a deal between the White House and Congress by Friday could lead to some young children being dropped from Head Start, the FBI furloughing agents and fewer food inspectors, according to the president.
If the cuts unleash these and other harms, like longer lines at airports, Congress and voters won't be able to say they weren't warned.
But what if the sequester, which would cut $85 billion from federal spending between March 1 and the end of September, turns out to be less of a calamity than Obama has warned? How might that affect his credibility and his political capital?
First, the mere fact of a sequester could be used to put Obama on the defensive. Why? Because there's video of him saying, flatly, that it wouldn't come to this.
During a presidential debate in October, Obama responded to a jab from Republican Mitt Romney that the sequester would take a large bite out of military preparedness:
"First of all, the sequester is not something that I proposed. It's something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen ... "