As he reported in his book The Price of Politics more than a year ago from on-the-record interviews with the players involved, the sequester was proposed by then-Chief of Staff Jack Lew and personally approved by President Barack Obama, before Harry Reid presented it to Republicans as a take-it-or-leave-it option to end the summer 2011 budget standoff:
My extensive reporting for my book “The Price of Politics” shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors — probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.Why lie about this? Woodward explains that shifting blame is a necessary part of moving the goal posts the actual issue at hand in August 2011.
Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.
Nabors has told others that they checked with the president before going to see Reid. A mandatory sequester was the only action-forcing mechanism they could devise. Nabors has said, “We didn’t actually think it would be that hard to convince them” — Reid and the Republicans — to adopt the sequester. “It really was the only thing we had. There was not a lot of other options left on the table.”
A majority of Republicans did vote for the Budget Control Act that summer, which included the sequester. Key Republican staffers said they didn’t even initially know what a sequester was — because the concept stemmed from the budget wars of the 1980s, when they were not in government.
◼ Obama’s sequester deal-changer - Bob Woodward/Washington Post
Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.◼ Obama: Sequester is Congress' fault, not mine - Andrew Malcolm/IBD
◼ On the sequester, the American people ‘moved the goalposts’ - I don’t agree with my colleague Bob Woodward, who says the Obama administration is “moving the goalposts” when they insist on a sequester replacement that includes revenues. - Ezra Klein/Wonkblog/Washington Post
◼ The sequester: Bob Woodward say Obama’s a liar - neoneocon
No, he doesn’t use the l-word. But he says it nonetheless, and in the WaPo.
Of course, the days when Bob Woodward could make presidents shake in their shoes are long gone. Not sure anybody cares now.... Of course, there’s blame to go around on both sides. But the funny thing (and not funny-ha-ha) is that the public blames the Republicans and trusts Obama. Go figure.
◼ Which #SequestrationThreat has you most terrified? Twitter laughs in face of ‘massive cuts’ - Twitchy
#SequestrationThreat Obamaphones no longer preloaded with Angry Birds
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 23, 2013
