| House Republicans Question Obama Administration Leadership on 9/11 Anniversary |
| Sep-11-2012 |
| Keywords: 9/11 anniversary, sequestration, defense cuts, kantor, boehner, obama, panetta, responsibility |
House Republicans used the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to hammer the Obama administration over looming cuts to defense spending, warning the cuts would cripple the country's national security.
House Majority leader Eric Cantor said, "The president should be called upon and asked, what is his plan? How is he going to lead and make sure that our military is not hollowed out?"
More than $500 billion in military spending cuts are set to go into effect at the end of the year as part of an agreement between Obama and congressional leaders to avoid a debt default last year.
Although Republican leaders agreed to the so-called "sequestration" plan last year, recently they have sought to blame the Obama administration for the cuts.
At a briefing with the House Republican leadership team, House Speaker John Boehner scorned President Obama on fiscal policy, blaming him for the failure of last year's budget talks.
"The fact that the super committee was unable to come to an agreement leaves us with this sequester. Why?" Boehner said. "Because the president didn't want to have a second round of a fight over increasing the debt limit."
Boehner said the failure to secure a sweeping deficit reduction agreement with Obama in 2011 was the "biggest disappointment" of his time as Speaker.
The Speaker said the $110 billion in scheduled across-the-board spending cuts for FY'13 and the expiration of the Bush era tax cuts at the end of the year are "two looming threats to the economy."
Boehner added that he is "not confident at all" that he will be able to strike a compromise with President Obama and Senate Democrats that will avert the "fiscal cliff" at the end of the year.
The remarks came during a press conference at which Republican leaders sought to tie the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to sequestration.
In the interview on "CBS This Morning", Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's admitted the Pentagon has not started to prepare for the cuts slated to go into effect, reacting defensively to the notion that such a move was irresponsible.
"What's irresponsible is the fact that they put these cuts into place, and that they are failing to come up with the answer as to how to prevent this from happening," he said. "They put a gun to their head - that's what a sequester was all about. They said, 'let's put a gun to our head, and if we don't do the right thing we'll blow our heads off.'
Majority Leader Eric Cantor teed off on Panetta's comments, echoing criticisms that there is a leadership issue within the Obama administration.
"The best thing we can do as a people to honor those individuals is to make sure it never happens again. And we have looming massive defense cuts that this House has acted to substitute," Cantor said. "I was surprised this morning when I heard Secretary Panetta say that the Pentagon is not readying itself, has not come to terms with what it chooses to do on the sequester. Which says to me again, there's a lack of leadership in this administration." |
|
|
Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 2:00 PM Email to a friend |
| < Back to Today's Issues |
|
 |
|
|
|
