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Romney knocks Obama for missing sequester deadline
Mitt Romney accused President Obama of stonewalling over potential cuts to the military after the White House said Friday that it would miss its deadline to provide a report on the budget cuts under sequestration.
Romney joined in widespread Republican criticism of the White House for not providing the report, legally required to be delivered to Congress by Friday, on how the across-the-board sequestration cuts of $109 billion for 2013 would be implemented.
“The American people have had enough of evasion and enough of finger pointing,” Romney said in a statement. “They just want answers. Secretary of Defense Panetta has said these cuts will be devastating to our national security and our economy. It’s time the President stops stonewalling, stops dismantling our military, and starts providing answers.”
Before its August recess, Congress passed the Sequestration Transparency Act, which gave the administration 30 days to provide a report explaining how the cuts would be implemented. It received widespread support from both parties.
While the sequester cuts would hit both defense and non-defense discretionary spending, Romney has focused particularly on the defense cuts, tying them to Obama while campaigning in states with a heavy military presence like Virginia, where he will be on Saturday.
The cuts, which are the result of the 2011 supercommittee's failure to reach a deal on deficit reduction, have become a campaign issue for both Romney and Obama. Romney and Republicans have accused Obama of harming the military in order to raise taxes, while Obama says that Republicans are willing to let the cuts happen to protect tax cuts for the wealthy.
The defense cuts have become part of a concerted effort from both campaigns to attract veteran voters, and the Obama campaign made national security a major part of its convention Thursday, particularly after Romney didn’t mention Afghanistan in his acceptance speech.
Republicans, meanwhile, have sought to blame Obama for the sequester, although it was passed by a majority of both parties in Congress before it was signed into law by the president.
In a Fox News interview Friday, Romney seized on excerpts of a new book from Bob Woodward that suggest the idea for sequestration originated in the White House, and he accused Obama of being responsible for cutting the military. Romney also defended his convention speech, saying that he described his commitment to a strong military even if he didn't use the word "troops."
“I opposed that idea,” Romney said of sequestration. “I think it is absolutely wrong to cut our military as the president is doing.”
— Justin Sink contributed to this report.
