President Obama has a message for all the heartbroken schoolchildren who won’t get to tour the White House following sequester cuts: blame the Secret Service.
“This was not a decision that went up to the White House,” he said an interview with ABC News that aired on Wednesday morning.
The President said the tours were cut to avoid furloughing Secret Service agents, thereby saving them and their families from facing a 5 to 10 percent reduction in pay.
Obama added that he and his administration were trying to do what they could to reinstate the tours, for school groups at the very least.
“What I’m asking [the Secret Service] is: are there ways, for example, for us to accommodate school groups who may have traveled here with some bake sales? Can we make sure that kids potentially can still come to tour?” Obama told George Stephanopoulos.
Yet apparently no one told the Secret Service they should consider cutting down on President Obama’s golf trips, as suggested by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). The POTUS will apparently continue hitting the links, even mid-sequester.
UPDATE: White House spokesman Jay Carney seemingly contradicted the President on Wednesday afternoon, remarking during a press briefing that the White House had cancelled the tours, as The Weekly Standard reported.
“We had to cancel the tours,” he said. “It’s our job to cancel the tours. They cannot cancel them.”
