The president blinks:

President Obama on Tuesday will ask Congress to approve legislation to replace at least some of the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to hit the government on March 1. A White House official said Obama would emphasize that the scheduled cuts would hurt the Pentagon and the broader economy. "With our economy poised to continue to strengthen this year, the president will make clear that we can't see another self-inflicted wound from Washington," a White House official said. "The president will urge Congress to come together and act to ensure these devastating cuts to defense and job-creating programs don't take effect."  
The 'sequestration' cuts have been a source of political schizophrenia for Obama.  First, his White House proposed the automatic cuts mechanism during the debt debate of 2011.  Since then, they've attempted to pass it off as Congress' idea, but Bob Woodward's reporting has taken their mendacity apart at the seams.  In November of 2011, months after the debt deal was struck, Obama criticized Republicans for trying to replace some of the mandated cuts to shield the Pentagon from deep budgetary slashes -- an outcome that Obama's own Defense Secretary warned would amount to the US military shooting itself in the head.  The president was adamant:  "My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one "  Almost a year later, Obama raised eyebrows by flatly asserting that the sequester "will not happen" during the final presidential debate.  Phil Klein quips that the president has now confirmed that he's the one seeking an "easy off ramp," and that he's inadvertently ceded the upper hand to Republicans in the process:
 
Ever since the election, Republicans have been frustrated by their lack of leverage against Obama. Taxes would have gone up by $4.5 trillion on Jan. 1 if nothing was done, so Republicans were forced to agree to limit the damage. If there were no increase in the debt limit, any economic chaos that followed would have allowed Obama to blame Republicans and distract attention from the problems posed by the nation’s mounting debt, so they agreed to suspend it — a strategy I had described as Maneuver X. Now Republicans have turned the tables on Obama. If nothing happens by March 1, about $1 trillion worth of spending cuts will go into effect automatically. Ideally, Republicans don’t want the military spending cuts, and they have voted in the House to replace them with other cuts. But they can live with them if nothing happens. Coming off the fourth quarter in which the economy contracted by 0.1 percent and was hurt by defense cuts, Obama doesn’t want to have headlines of defense contractor layoffs eroding his political capital in the short window he has to advance his second term agenda.  
In other words, the inertia finally favors the GOP.  House Republicans have repeatedly voted to protect the military against their disproportionate share of the mandated cuts, but to no avail.  Democrats have opposed them at every turn, and the president has threatened to veto any such effort (as quoted above).  Now Obama realizes that he's staring $1 trillion in brutal, immediate, across-the-board spending cuts in the face, and he's worried.  He has little appetite for spending restraint in the first place, but the current scenario truly puts him in a bind.  The cuts will weaken national security and crudely undermine popular domestic programs.  For a guy who campaigned in 2008 on the need to judiciously cut the budget with "a scalpel," he's about to take a pickaxe to the federal budget and hack away half-blindfolded.  And it was his idea.  So what's his last-ditch plan to avert this mess of his own making?  Surprise:  

White House officials say President Barack Obama will ask Congress to come up with tens of billions of dollars in short-term spending cuts and tax revenue to put off the automatic across the board cuts that are scheduled to kick in March 1.  
Basically, Obama wants Republicans in Congress to delay a tranche of previously agreed-upon, legally-required spending reductions and replace some of them with tax increases.  There's a simple response to this proposal: Hell no.  If they have any sense and unity of purpose at all, Congressional Republicans will stand firm and resist this gimmick until either (a) they get an offer they can't refuse in terms of smarter, long-term cuts and reforms, or (b) the sequester takes effect.  It goes without saying that they should toss the tax hike demand straight into the rubbish bin.  Obama got his silly "tax the rich" victory over the fiscal cliff.  That ship has sailed, and it must not return to port.  In regards to the looming cuts, I realize that they would be -- to quote the president -- "not optimal" for the military, to put it lightly.  But Obama is counting on (justifiable) Republican defense jitters to scotch the package of cuts.  The GOP must make it clear that despite their strong misgivings and previous attempts to rectify some of the very challenges Obama is now lamenting, they are willing to let the Obama-proposed cuts go into effect.  Klein summarizes the Republicans' robust position: "Either [Obama] agrees to cuts of an equal amount, or the sequester will kick in."  
One final point: Additional delays of the sequester play into Obama's hands within the larger context of battles over spending and debt.  Remember, these cuts were the auto-fire consequence of the 'Super Committee' failing to agree upon more than $1 trillion in cuts after the last debt deal -- which is to say that these are 2011 cuts that are still lingering in Washington, not having gone into effect yet.  There will be future battles over spending and debt.  The problem isn't going away.  Conservatives need to make sure to clear the decks before Democrats inevitably try to muddy the waters by lumping two-year-old cuts into the "savings" of a future deal.  It's time to close that book, and fight, well, forward.   Party leaders have assured the media that their caucus is prepared to stand shoulder-to-shoulder on this.  But boasting of "having the votes" doesn't always work out, does it?  In any case, it's been awhile, but the GOP finally has a strategic advantage over the president.  They'd better not squander it.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/02/05/sequester-n1505606

Michigan Unions: Why Help Workers When We Can Help Ourselves?

 Following Michigan's adoption of Right to Work legislation, unions, it seems, have decided that their best chance for self-preservation is a good offense...against their own members. The Wall Street Journal reports on a memo revealing that the unions' strategy for combating the law -- which will undoubtedly cost them precious funds, as already-reluctant members opt to quit -- is to target remaining members as they attempt to minimize loss of influence.
That's the message from a December 27-28 memo to local union presidents and board members from Michigan Education Association President Steven Cook, which recommends tactics that unions can use to dilute the impact of the right-to-work law. One bright idea is to renegotiate contracts now to lock teachers into paying union dues after the right-to-work law goes into effect in March. Another is to sue their own members who try to leave.
"Members who indicate they wish to resign membership in March, or whenever, will be told they can only do so in August," Mr. Cook writes in the three-page memo obtained by the West Michigan Policy Forum. "We will use any legal means at our disposal to collect the dues owed under signed membership forms from any members who withhold dues prior to terminating their membership in August for the following fiscal year." Got that, comrade?
Also watch for contract negotiations in which union reps sign up members for smaller pay raises and benefits in exchange for a long-term contract. "We've looked carefully at this and believe the impact of RTW [right to work] can be blunted through bargaining strategies," Mr. Cook writes.
In other words, Michigan unions are going to squeeze every penny out of their members -- even those who wish to defect -- and sacrifice wages and benefits for the sake of obtaining contracts. These practices are notably antithetical to unions' historical objections; organized labor had its genesis when workers needed a forum to gather and combat predatory employer practices, and now here the unions are preying on their own.

Given the failure Wisconsin unions had when they attempted a recall, Michigan unions have ruled out a similar attempt, and the memo further suggests that they don't believe legal action a viable recourse, either. Thus, they're left to cannibalize their own, essentially, thereby making membership even less palatable. It's an example of just how far unions have strayed from their original intent. Now, glutted on the benefits of political clout, they have themselves become distracted by their own gain at the workers' collective sake. What's more, this seems like an ill-conceived survival strategy: in the short term, it may keep the coffers filled to expected levels, but such policies are unlikely to attract new members, and may drive out old members, as they continue to pay dues for little discernible benefit.

What's more, 50% of Michiganders approve of the law, while 45% disapprove. Hardly overwhelming, but notable nonetheless, when considering that Michigan, historically, was the state the UAW built. Half of the population of one of the nation's most union-friendly states doesn't feel that way anymore, and unions are harming their own in order to survive. The outlook is bleak from the unions' perspective, and it's only a matter of time before these chickens, too, come home to roost.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katehicks/2013/02/05/michigan-unions-why-help-workers-when-we-can-coerce-them-n1505658

Seven million will lose insurance under Obama health law

President Obama's health care law will push 7 million people out of their job-based insurance coverage — nearly twice the previous estimate, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.

CBO said that this year's tax cuts have changed the incentives for businesses and made it less attractive to pay for insurance, meaning fewer will decide to do so. Instead, they'll choose to pay a penalty to the government, totaling $13 billion in higher fees over the next decade.

But the non-partisan agency also expects fewer people to have to pay individual penalties to the IRS than it earlier projects, because of a better method for calculating incomes that found more people will be exempt.
Overall, the new health provisions are expected to cost the government $1.165 trillion over the next decade — the same as last year's projection.

With other spending cuts and tax increases called for in the health law, though, CBO still says Mr. Obama's signature achievement will reduce budget deficits in the short term.

During the health care debate Mr. Obama had said individuals would be able to keep their plans.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/feb/5/obama-health-law-will-cost-7-million/

ICE ex-chief: Nondeport rules would’ve spared 9/11 hijackers

The former chief of deportations in the Bush administration will testify to Congress on Tuesday that President Obama’s new nondeportation policies would have let the Sept. 11 hijackers remain in the country even if they had been picked up in the months before their deadly attacks.

And the current chief of the union that represents Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will tell the House Judiciary Committee that ICE agents are now required to wait until most illegal immigrants have three misdemeanor convictions before they can be arrested and put in deportation proceedings.

“Most Americans would be surprised to know that immigration agents are regularly prohibited from enforcing the two most fundamental sections of United States immigration law,” said Chris Crane, president of National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council. “According to ICE policy, in most cases, immigration agents can no longer arrest persons solely for entering the United States illegally.”

As momentum builds in the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass a broad bill legalizing illegal immigrants, House Republicans kick off their side of the debate Tuesday with a two-part hearing looking at the need for legal immigration and reviewing Mr. Obama’s record on enforcement and border security.

Mr. Obama’s first four years were characterized by record deportations of aliens with criminal records, but fewer rank-and-file illegal immigrants being deported.

His administration has issued several new policies that direct agents to focus on those with serious criminal histories, and it has created a new program for illegal immigrant young adults brought here by their parents to give them official legal status.

His moves have won support from immigrant-rights advocates, who say he’s blunted the worst abuses of a broken immigration system, but have earned derision from those who want to see a crackdown on illegal immigration.

The Judiciary Committee will hear from eight witnesses, including San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, who delivered the keynote address at Democratic National Convention last year, and former ICE Director Julie Myers Wood, who ran the agency for the last few years of the Bush administration.

Mr. Castro will tell the committee that there is bipartisan momentum for getting a bill done, and will defend the Obama administration’s record.

“In Texas, we know firsthand that this administration has put more boots on the ground along the border than at any time in our history, which has led to unprecedented success in removing dangerous individuals with criminal records,” he said in his prepared testimony.

But Ms. Wood will tell the committee the focus on criminals “poses a potentially serious threat to our system.”

“It sends a message to those that seek to cause harm: if they can come in the United States illegally, but not immediately commit any additional crimes, they are likely to be left alone. Left alone to plan, take steps, cause harm,” she said.

She said the administration policy would have overlooked “individuals like several of the 9/11 hijackers, who ‘merely’ lied to obtain state identification documents or on their visa applications.”

The House hearing comes as the Republican Party is struggling with how to handle immigration.
Four Republican senators are working with four Democratic senators on legislation to legalize illegal immigrants. But House Republicans have been less open about how far they are willing to go.