Rep. Raúl Labrador has a message for Washington regarding the sequester: Get over it.
It’s time for Congress to stop talking about the automatic cuts, accept them and move on, the Idaho Republican said on Wednesday during April’s “Conversation with Conservatives” event.
“I think it’s the first time we’ve saved money in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “I think we need to move on from the subject and talk about how we can get to a balanced budget in 10 years and stop trying to find ways to bring the sequester up in every conversation.”
Labrador noted Democrats — and even some Republicans — have a fascination with the sequester. But the Idaho Republican urged Congress to move on.
Eight other Republicans joined Labrador for the monthly event, hosted by the Heritage Foundation. The Congressmen were asked about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plan to pay for the sequester using savings from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — wars that Democrats have long argued weren’t paid for in the first place.
“It’s ridiculous,” Labrador said. “It’s the way we do things in Washington. We spend too much money, we complain about how much money we spend, and then we become desensitized to it and all of a sudden we use that as savings or as a way to pay for other programs.”
He also noted that the Obama administration is trying to make the sequester as painful as possible for the American people, as evidenced by the threat of flight delays due to Federal Aviation Administration budget cuts. He said that his constituents laugh about how Congress can’t cut even three percent from its budget.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) added that government agencies had plenty of warning about the sequester, since the automatic cuts had gone into effect in August of 2011.
“They had 20 months to prepare for this,” he said.
