I wonder if the wingnuts will ever come to terms with the fact that we live in a digital age, where images tend to get preserved.
Anyway, The Daily Beast has a story this morning, entitled "The PowerPoint That Proves It’s Not Obama’s Sequester After All."
It's best to read the entire article, but here are a few snippets. After challenging the entire logic of the claim that this is Obama's sequester, the article proceeds:
But here’s the thing. I happened to come across an old email that throws cold water on House Republicans’ attempts to call this “Obama’s Sequester.”
It’s a PowerPoint presentation that Boehner’s office developed with the Republican Policy Committee and sent out to the Capitol Hill GOP on July 31, 2011. Intended to explain the outline of the proposed debt deal, the presentation is titled: “Two Step Approach to Hold President Obama Accountable.”
It’s essentially an internal sales document from the old dealmaker Boehner to his unruly and often unreasonable Tea Party cohort. But it’s clear as day in the presentation that “sequestration” was considered a cudgel to guarantee a reduction in federal spending—the conservatives’ necessary condition for not having America default on its obligations.
The presentation lays out the deal in clear terms, describing the spending backstop as “automatic across-the-board cuts (‘sequestration’). Same mechanism used in 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.”
The Joint Committee, ultimately misled by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) into enacting the sequester, is explained in detail under a page titled “Entitlement Reforms and Savings”:
I seem to be too inept to copy and paste the actual image from the article, but here are the bullet points of that page from the Boehner presentation, which was meant to sell his caucus on the deal:
Sets up a new sequestration process to cut spending across-the-board—and ensure that any debt limit increase is met with greater spending cuts—IF Joint Committee fails to achieve at least $1.2T in deficit reduction.
If this happens, POTUS may request up to $1.2T for a debt limit increase, and if granted, then across-the-board spending cuts would result that would equal the difference between $1.2T and the deficit reduction enacted as a result of Joint Committee.
Across-the-board spending cuts would apply to FYs 2013-2021, and apply to both mandatory & discretionary programs.
Total reductions would be equally split between defense and non-defense programs. Across-the-board cuts would also apply to Medicare. Other programs, including Social Security, Medicaid, veterans, and civil & military pay, would be exempt.
Sequestration process is designed to guarantee that Congress acts on the Joint Committee’s legislation to cut spending.
Of course, none of this is really new to anyone in this community. But now there is evidence from Boehner's Power Point presentation to make his abject hypocrisy even more obvious.