You're narrowing down the options to either 1) Sequestration or 2) Increase taxes. Those aren't the only two choices.

This whole dilema was initiated by teabagging half-wits like West whose idea of "compromise" included automatic across the board budget cuts as a response to raising the debt ceiling at a time of financial crisis in America. The disasterous and fully predicted result was the degrading of the US's credit rating. Now West and the other half-wit teabaggers that have taken over the GOP don't want to follow through on the very agreement they voted for because they refuse to compromise on any cuts to the military industrial complex, which is already funded at a level greater than the rest of the world combined.

So yeah, one side is refusing to bargain in good faith, and it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out who it is.

Democrats should stand proud to end the Bush wars. Fuck the Neocons.

Allan West and the rest of his extremist republican friends would love to see
a series of international terrorists events leading up to the election and the
reasons are obvious. That being said, these horrendous scums would also
welcome some sort of event upon our own country. Then they would gather all their
extreme right wing ex-vets who have not seen service in 40 years, hold several news conferences with their birther politicians and puke out, how right they were
when they claimed Obama was not a real American .
Im telling you, we all know this is fact and it should be stated more in our community
when idiots like West bring up the defense cuts conversation!

... perhaps he should check out his leadership style when he was in the Air Force.

That was the compromise... work something out or this happens. They didn't work anything out, so the cuts will happen. This is the way the cookie crumbled.

We just had some Foreign Service Posts attacked and some employees murdered by the most intolerant on this planet. It is not the time to find fault with our President and would be better and smarter to come together as one to condemn what was an Assault on this Country.

I am sure that those responsible will be caught and will pay the price. Democracy has a price to pay entry but not by cold blooded murder.

The world today is very unstable and there are two many who are intolerant.

of the night soil of a well fed male ox. The sequestering was agree to and voted on by both parties. When the debt reduction panel failed to come to an agreement, it made the sequestering a joint action by both parties. Calling the cuts Obama's is a flat lie. Also, we are reducing the manpower due to less commitments: eg, no more Iraq. Hollow shell my left ear... The shell itself is shrinking.

Where the hell do they think the money comes from? The war fairy? What absolutely total assholes. I'm sorry.

Wake up people. Stop being brainwashed by FAUX and friends. They are huge liars. That's what they're paid for and that's all they're good at. All in hopes of ruining your life to fatten their own pockets. They don't even care that their kids have to live in the horror they want to create, drink the dirty water, eat the radiated, GMO food, breathe the toxic air, etc etc. They just plain don't care. $$$$$$$$ is all they care about....and none for you!

Too much waste, to much military, too many wars. Its time to dismantle the military industrial complex.

They were the assholes who refused to raise the debt ceiling. They were the ones who demanded budget cuts. They were the ones tasked with finding those cuts or raising revenue. They couldn't. And when Paul Ryan and his brethren walked away from the table, the automatic cuts they already approved went into effect.

The only thing President Obama did was turn their own greed and malice against their own benefactors, rather than the downtrodden and impoverished, which is their preference.

And when this, combined with the END of the Bush tax cuts for the filthy rich (finally) bear fruit, we can start paying down the debt. The first DAY that the National Debt goes down by so much as a dollar, Dems. will get the credit, and everyone in the ranks of the GOP KNOWS IT. This sequestration deal is a gigantic political grenade that the President tossed them, and they caught it with open arms, because the morAns over there were too dumb to know better, and too many for Speaker Boehner to force back in line.
Fuck em. They deserve what is going to happen to them because of it.

It all goes back to that extension of the Bush tax cuts in December, 2010. The Republicans agreed to the expiration timetable because they assumed that future obstruction and hostage-taking would allow them to extend it again.

Even that might be giving them too much credit; it's quite possible that not a damned one of them nor their staves actually read the legislation they happily supported at the time.

Who knew it would be so easy to tangle them in their own avarice? All we needed was a President smart enough to know legislative procedure well enough to cut off their options a few moves ahead, where they don't know to look because they don't know their jobs.

Now they are "mated," without a kiss.

They are reductions in the growth of planned spending. So any reference to them as "cuts" gets the quotation marks from me.

The reason the sequestration is going into place is simple: the GOP refused any revenue increase (taxes) whatsoever, for any group or income bracket, period. So, if we're lower on embassy security, talk to Paul Ryan and the Grover Norquist pledge people. If the Marines operations people have $850 million less to work with, talk to Paul Ryan and the Grover Norquist pledge people. If you can only build 90% of your ship, talk to Paul Ryan and the Grover Norquist pledge people.

Paul Ryan and the Grover Norquist pledge people had ample opportunity to deal fairly on a balanced approach of cuts to spending and revenue increases that wouldn't affect the middle class. They refused. They stonewalled. They blocked and fought and obstructed. No tax increase, period, they screamed. So the President made a deal with them, a deal that left Democrats howling that he was a sell-out. He said, develop a balanced approach of spending cuts and tax increases as a Supercommittee. If you fail, if you can't compromise, then the sequestration comes in, and everything gets cut across the board. If you can't act responsibly, if you can't compromise, then everything gets cut, including defense and everything else.

Hooray, screamed the GOP. Hooray screamed Cantor, and Boehner, and Ryan, and Grover Norquist. Obama has CAVED! He's CAVED. We won! We got 98% of what we asked for! We forced him to cave! The Dems, too, and the progressives! Oh, horrible, they moaned. Obama has traded away SS and Medicare! And the GOP all went and VOTED for their great victory: Super Committee or the sequestration. They voted to cut the Marine operations budget $850 million if they couldn't compromise. They voted to cut the embassy security budget if they couldn't compromise. They voted to slice 10% of that ship if they couldn't compromise. Cantor voted for it. Boehner voted for it. Ryan voted for it.

So, why are we facing the sequestration? Because they refused to compromise. They refused even ONE RED CENT of tax increases on top income earners. Not a dime. Not a penny. they stonewalled and blocked and obstructed, even though they knew that if they didn't deal, the defense cuts would come in. They knew what the sequester said, and they still refused to deal. Paul Ryan knew what the sequester would entail, and still refused to raise taxes one penny on the rich. he's rather the rich not pay one penny more than the Marines keep their operations budget. He'd rather the rich not pay one penny more than the embassies be secure. He'd rather the rich not pay one penny more than that ship be built at 100%. That's Paul Ryan. Ask Paul Ryan why those cuts are coming down the pike. He'll probably lie to you, like he did to Norah O'Donnell, but the answer is clear as day. Rather than his rich friends paying a single cent more in taxes, Paul Ryan will sacrifice the Marines, the embassy security, and the Navy. He doesn't give a good goddamn, just so long as no taxes are increased on his rich friends.

Ask Paul Ryan why the sequestration is happening. It's his sequestration, after all. It's his victory. So ask him.