[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 26 (Monday, February 25, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H602]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE PRESIDENT'S SEQUESTER

  (Ms. FOXX asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of our colleague 
from Maryland, but I think he needs to direct them to the President, 
and I am going to speak to that in my 1-minute.
  The editorial page of The Washington Post is not known for being 
critical of the President. This weekend, however, it published an op-ed 
by one of their most veteran reporters which should establish once and 
for all that the sequester--arbitrary across-the-board spending cuts 
that go into effect March 1--was the brainchild of the Obama 
administration.
  Woodward writes that at 2:30 on the afternoon of July 27, 2011, White 
House officials Jack Lew and Rob Nabors brought up the idea of the 
sequester in a meeting with the Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry 
Reid. Even more notable is Woodward's assertion that ``Obama personally 
approved of the plan,'' which was presented.
  Jack Lew is now the President's nominee for Treasury Secretary, and 
Woodward reports that in his confirmation hearings in the Senate, when 
asked about proposing the sequester, Lew went into ``denial mode.'' The 
American people are tired of denial mode, Mr. Speaker. We need a 
serious plan to replace the President's sequester, and it needs to come 
from the other side of the aisle.

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