President Obama has been giving the sequester plenty of negative attention recently. Two weeks ago he made a statement about the sequester in which he called it a "self-inflicted wound" to the economy. Ten days ago he focused on it during his Weekly Address saying the cuts would make Americans "suffer." Then last week, in his State of the Union speech, the President called it "a really bad idea."

If you didn't know better you'd think all of this was a shock to the President. In fact, when the Debt Limit Deal was reached in 2011 the White House made clear that sequester was bad news by design. The White House Fact Sheet announcing the debt limit deal called sequester as "A Strong Enforcement Mechanism to Make All Sides Come Together."

If the fiscal committee took no action, the deal would automatically add nearly $500 billion in defense cuts on top of cuts already made, and, at the same time, it would cut critical programs like infrastructure or education.  That outcome would be unacceptable to many Republicans and Democrats alike – creating pressure for a bipartisan agreement without requiring the threat of a default with unthinkable consequences for our economy. 

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