Say Anything

Just another moment of leadership from our fiscally unserious president:

The White House on Friday said it will miss the legal deadline for delivering a report to Congress on the spending cuts from sequestration that are scheduled to take effect in 2013.

Spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Air Force One that the report will be coming next week.

Under the terms of the Sequestration Transparency Act signed in August, President Obama was to tell Congress by Friday how the administration plans to implement the $109 billion in automatic cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act.

The Office of Management and Budget has repeatedly failed to make legal deadlines. It delivered its presidential budget proposals and mid-session updates late both this year and last year.

By the way, the fact that President Obama is in the driver’s seat for these sequestration cuts shows just what a bad deal the Budget Control Act was.  Not only did the Budget Control Act clear the way for a debt ceiling hike that has allowed trillions to be added to our national debt, but now the President gets to set the priorities for sequestration cuts (which are kicking in because Congress couldn’t reach an agreement on a spending cuts package).

Not that I expect these sequestration cuts will be made.  More than likely Obama will lump them mostly on defense cuts, and Republicans will object.  Or, less likely, he’ll cut social programs and Democrats will object.  Either way, don’t expect them to actually happen.  Remember, we’re dealing a Congress that hasn’t yet passed a budget with just a few months left to go in their term.