Bob Woodward: Yes, the sequester was totally the White House's idea

[Dinner]

Boeher's lies and invectives are why house Republicans now enjoy an approval rating in the single digits. I'm glad Drake is easily amused though. Boenher know the garbage he and the Republicans have passed was D.O.A. and now it is time for him to actually stop being hyper partisan and pass something which actually can be agreed by 51 votes in the Senate.

[MichaeltheGreat]

That explains why so many are scared of primary challenges

It takes more than that, MtG. Particularly Senators.

They're scared of primary challenges, IF they don't toe the local/state party line, or IF they go sufficiently astray from a major partisan monied interest such that they make themselves targets for replacement.

[MichaeltheGreat]

None of your suggestions work in reality. Corporations and so called "job creators" are sitting on many trillions of dollars.

Primarily due to economic/political uncertainty, and in some cases, to make themselves an unattractive takeover target.

Name one regulation that is preventing a job from being created.

You could start with the entire FAR, DFARS, GSAM, etc. And go from there.

If anything, regulations promote innovation and efficiency in the economy...

If by that, you mean gamesmanship and cottage industries of compliance people, lawyers, etc. who do nothing but deal with regulatory matters.

in addition to preventing an immeasurable amount of harm to individuals, property and the economy in general.

In theory, yes. In practice, sometimes in some areas, not so much in others. I'm not anti-regulation by any means, but having worked with compliance and permitting issues on one side of the fence, and government acquisition on the other (USG) side of the fence, I can tell you firsthand there is a ton of redundancy, ambiguity, occasional contradiction, arbitrariness, needless complexity, and in some cases regulations which are either counter to their public policy goals or ineffective in meeting them. The GOP view of scrapping regulation is bull****, but so is the Pelosista/Boxerista view of regulating everything to death. There's a lot of room for improvement, and major government (and private sector compliance) efficiencies to be gained by comprehensive review and overhaul of regulations to improve clarity, consistency and appropriateness to the public policy underlying the regulations.

[DanS]

Unfortunately, the sequester amounts to a very small amount of cuts. I haven't heard either side being serious about curtailing spending to the degree needed (they're off by an order of magnitude or so).

[Tupac Shakur]

Boeher's lies and invectives are why house Republicans now enjoy an approval rating in the single digits. I'm glad Drake is easily amused though.

Go **** yourself.

Boenher know the garbage he and the Republicans have passed was D.O.A. and now it is time for him to actually stop being hyper partisan and pass something which actually can be agreed by 51 votes in the Senate.

Novel concept: the Senate should pass something that can be agreed to by the Senate

[Tupac Shakur]

Unfortunately, the sequester amounts to a very small amount of cuts. I haven't heard either side being serious about curtailing spending to the degree needed (they're off by an order of magnitude or so).

Realistically, the nation's long-term debt is going to consume us unless there's a) some unforeseen sustained increase in GDP growth rates, b) a significant unanticipated reduction in long-term spending on healthcare for the elderly, or c) a political sea-change that wipes out existing interest groups and bureaucratic institutions. Demosclerosis is too advanced for Washington to fix itself at this point, so here's hoping for the Singularity, a bird flu pandemic, or a revolution to save us.

[Tupac Shakur]

Bob Woodward called a senior White House official last week to tell him that in a piece in that weekend’s Washington Post, he was going to question President Barack Obama’s account of how sequestration came about - and got a major-league brushback. The Obama aide “yelled at me for about a half hour,” Woodward told us in an hour-long interview yesterday around the Georgetown dining room table where so many generations of Washington’s powerful have spilled their secrets.

Digging into one of his famous folders, Woodward said the tirade was followed by a page-long email from the aide, one of the four or five administration officials most closely involved in the fiscal negotiations with the Hill. “I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today,” the official typed. “You’re focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. … I think you will regret staking out that claim.”

Woodward repeated the last sentence, making clear he saw it as a veiled threat. “ ‘You’ll regret.’ Come on,” he said. “I think if Obama himself saw the way they’re dealing with some of this, he would say, ‘Whoa, we don’t tell any reporter ‘you’re going to regret challenging us.’ ”

“They have to be willing to live in the world where they’re challenged,” Woodward continued in his calm, instantly recognizable voice. “I’ve tangled with lots of these people. But suppose there’s a young reporter who’s only had a couple of years — or 10 years’ — experience and the White House is sending him an email saying, ‘You’re going to regret this.’ You know, tremble, tremble. I don’t think it’s the way to operate.” The White House declined to comment for this story.

Behind the Curtain: Woodward at war - Politico

edit:

Watching and now having interviewed Woodward, it is easy to see why White House officials get worked about him. He clearly is skeptical of Obama’s approach to the job. “I’m not sure he fully understands the power he has,” Woodward said. “He sees that the power is the public megaphone going around to these campaign-like events, which is real, but the audience he needs to deal with is on this issue of the sequester and these budget issues is John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.”

Woodward also said that based on his reporting for the book, Obama deserves more of the blame for scuttling the grand bargain of 2011 that would have put sequestration to rest long ago. “He changed the deal and it blew up,” Woodward said. “I mean, you look at the facts, and even by the White House accounts by his aides, he was making a last-minute change.”

Woodward thinks there is still a grand bargain to be had between Obama and Boehner, with tax reform as a huge component. “Sit down and work through this,” he said. “I can see exactly how you come up with a deal that would dispose of lots of things.” Woodward, who helped bring down one presidency and has written instant history on every one since, added: “Color me a little baffled. I don’t understand this White House. Do you?”

Woodward's spot on in his assessment of the White House. It's be great if they'd stop campaigning and actually start governing.

[kentonio]

Woodward repeated the last sentence, making clear he saw it as a veiled threat. “ ‘You’ll regret.’ Come on,” he said. “I think if Obama himself saw the way they’re dealing with some of this, he would say, ‘Whoa, we don’t tell any reporter ‘you’re going to regret challenging us.’ ”

If proof was needed that Woodward has become a crazy old man, it's right here. Any sane person would have read that as 'You're likely to regret printing something that is later shown to be false and therefore makes you look like an idiot'. It takes a special kind of paranoid nut to see any deeper meaning to it.

[Tupac Shakur]

How could a factual statement about a historical event ever be shown to be false? Someone is indeed nutty here, but it ain't Bob Woodward...

[Felch]

Any sane person would have read that as 'You're likely to regret printing something that is later shown to be false and therefore makes you look like an idiot'. It takes a special kind of paranoid nut to see any deeper meaning to it.

Without the full context of the article, I think it's a bit premature for you to be characterizing Woodward as paranoid. Remember that this administration literally has a secret kill list.

[Tupac Shakur]

Washington DC, 1972

Woodward: The Nixon Administration covered up its involvement in the break-in at the DNC Headquarters in the Watergate complex.

Senior Nixon Administration official: I think you will regret staking out that claim.

Woodward: WTF? Are you threatening me?

Kentonio: ZOMFG, Bob Woodward is a paranoid nut!

/end scene

[DaShi]

He's right. Nixon was totally innocent.

[DaShi]

Without the full context of the article, I think it's a bit premature for you to be characterizing Woodward as paranoid. Remember that this administration literally has a secret kill list.

Oh please. It's not like the U.S. government can use drones to target American citizens.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Without the full context of the article, I think it's a bit premature for you to be characterizing Woodward as paranoid. Remember that this administration literally has a secret kill list.

Oh, boo ****ing hoo, we're going to kill al Qaeda operatives. Cry me a ****ing river.

[Hauldren Collider]

Woodward's spot on in his assessment of the White House. It's be great if they'd stop campaigning and actually start governing.

Obama has literally never stopped campaigning since 2007. I'm not sure he even knows how to do anything else.