John Boehner's alligator tears for the defense budget
Remember this post-mortem from House Speaker John Boehner after taking the nation hostage over raising the debt ceiling?
When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the white House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy.
He's going for the other two percent.
“I’ve got concerns about the sequester,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters Thursday. “I’ve made that pretty clear. And replacing the sequester certainly has value. The defense portion of the sequester, in my view, would clearly hollow our military. The Secretary of Defense has said that, members of Congress have said it. But the question I would pose is, where’s the White House? Where’s the leadership that should be there to ensure that this sequester does not go into effect.”
"Sequester" is the legislatese for the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts the Congress agreed to in their deal with the White House last August. It was that, or cuts made by the Super Congress, which had a best a 50-50 chance of actually succeeding. Because Republicans refuse to actually negotiate in good faith. In fact, the defense cuts were included in the eventual automatic triggers as a way to try to make Republicans actually bargain for real, because everyone knew the last thing a Republican wants to see is defense contractors losing money.
Gosh, it's almost enough to make you think you can't trust a Republican.