A group supporting deficit reduction is launching a national advertising campaign targeting President Obama's opposition to the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration that began on March 1.
Public Notice, which bills itself as "an independent non-profit dedicated to providing facts and insight on the economy and how government policy affects Americans’ financial well-being" and is lead by former George W. Bush aide Gretchen Hamel, is putting six figures behind the ad. It will run for a week and a half on cable and online.
"Americans have made tough choices and cut back. Washington refuses. Call Washington. Ask them why it's so hard to cut spending," a narrator says at the end of the ad.
The ad frames sequestration as amounting to "three cents out of every dollar Washington spends."
“Now that the political posturing is over, it's time for Washington to come up with the best way to implement the sequester or offer smarter cuts to replace it. Finding just three cents on every dollar in the annual federal budget to replace sequestration isn't ‘draconian’ or ‘drastic,'—it's the responsible thing to do," Hamel says in a statement.
Hamel's proposal, to find "smarter" ways to institute the cuts, echoes the solution offered by Senate Republicans last week. Their bill, which failed on a 38-62 vote, gave President Obama more flexibility to manage the cuts.
