Politics

Bill Kristol blasts ‘pathetic’ sequestration political debate

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
Font Size:

On Sunday’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol was incredulous that Congress and the White House have not reached a compromise to avert the “fail-safe” sequester mechanism, which would trigger massive budget cuts.

“Look, the White House proposed it originally, so the White House is being misleading recently when they denied that,” Kristol said. “On the other hand, the majority of Republicans in Congress voted for it. So they both accepted it as a trigger — as a sort of fail-safe mechanism that would be too horrible to contemplate, and now it’s happening. And it’s just pathetic really that this is a political debate about Democrats.” (RELATED — Woodward: Obama repeatedly lied about responsibility for sequester trigger)

Kristol suggested that the timing should be ripe for compromise, given that the next major national election is a long way off.

“How many months are we from the next election?” Kristol continued. “Kind of a long way — this is the kind of thing in September of the election year you’ll understand. You’re not going to get a compromise, really? In February, right after a national election, you people can’t rise above this sniping. The president of the United States does stupid campaign events with people, with emergency responders right behind him as props? The Republicans in the House sit around and say, ‘Oh, let it go in. We’re tough guys. …”

Follow Jeff on Twitter