In 2011, Obama played the fight the deficit game with the GOP, by signing the 'Budget Control Act of 2011". It mandated across the board spending reductions of 5% or so for non-entitlement spending of the government, not evaluating or specifying where or how the cuts were to be made. Just an ax to every discretionary program.

Nothing like this had ever been done before. Obama gambled it wouldn't happen. Doing so may have helped him win the election. Or maybe not.

Obama now calls the sequester "Just Dumb". Maybe his making this deal with the GOP in 2011 was dumb, and thinking they would back out of it now was also dumb. The GOP is the Party of dumb. Obama should know that by now.

What is clear now is the game of 'budgetary chicken' inherent in that act, that the GOP would never sanction $40 billion plus cuts to the Pentagon, and would raise taxes or close loopholes to prevent it, was false. Obama risked the cuts to programs that help the neediest Americans, and cuts to our 'seed corn', the CDC, NIH, food inspection, special needs education, aid to poor pregnant women, aid to the unemployed or disabled, research grants and infrastructure spending, to play this game of deficit chicken. He lost. We lost. America lost.

The Republicans don't care if the government fails, they don't care so fervently they are willing to even cut the Pentagon. The only good thing is now we surely can't afford another war!

The only stick he had to wield against the GOP was the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Republicans would do anything to avoid resurrection of Clinton tax rates. Obama settled for half a loaf there, he got $600 billion or so of tax increases, only about one dollar of tax increases for four dollars of cuts. Even Simpson Bowles called for about one dollar of tax increases for two dollars of cuts. Federal tax revenue as a percent of GDP is now the lowest in 50 years. While corporate profits are so high it is called a 'Golden Age'.

Obama was thinking last December, make a deal on the Bush tax cuts, even if not the best, and with the sequester get more revenue. It hasn't happened.  He could have let the tax cuts expire, which would have sent the GOP into meltdown. Then, roll the whole thing, tax cuts, deficit, sequester, into one big deal in the new year. He didn't.

Now Obama may spend the next, what,  2 or 4(?) years trying to run a financially crippled federal government?  While people living in poverty are turned out into the streets and poor pregnant women are turned away from health care or nutrition assistance, etc etc. This is not a formula for national prosperity. Obama is once again coming in focus as the student who writes his thesis the last night, thinks it is good enough to get by. Doesn't plan ahead or think things through. He gets by, but fails in doing so.

Tell me I am wrong on this analysis, please. Pardon me if I hope Hillary in 2016 can do better.

See OMB REPORT TO THE CONGRESS ON THE JOINT COMMITTEE SEQUESTRATION FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013--3/1/13.

Meanwhile, the NYT reports that corporate profits are soaring, while at the same time many are cutting jobs.

Wall Street bankers say “the market wants more austerity”, and why not? As long as unemployment is high people will take any job at any pay. They will shun unions. Those with any cash will put it into stocks, and raise stock prices, as they get virtually no interest on bank deposits.  Bernanke and the Fed, using the excuse of helping the unemployed, give away 0% free money to the big financial players on Wall Street, a policy which seems to help bankers more than consumers or savers. All while the poor get it upside the head from the sequester. See The Poor Face Most Pain from Budget Cuts.

Robert Reich on the topic:

...in the months (or years) ahead, federal money will be reduced for poor schools, child nutrition, preschools, and mental-health services.

Some 3.8 million who have been unemployed for more than six months will see their jobless benefits cut.

Some 600,000 low-income women and children will no longer benefit from the federal nutrition program for women and toddlers.

Lower-income Americans are already suffering disproportionately from high unemployment. But they will bear even more of the burden of joblessness as the economy slows because of the sequester.

Meanwhile, America has become far more unequal than it was in 1967. Then, the richest 1 percent got 9 percent of the nation’s total income and paid a top marginal tax of 78 percent (and an effective rate, after deductions and credits, of 54 percent).

Now the richest 1 percent get over 20 percent of the nation’s income and pay a marginal tax of 39 percent (and an effective rate of 23 percent — or, if you’re in Mitt Romney’s league, less than 19 percent). The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined.