Flashback: Obama Vows To Veto 'Any Effort' To Undo Sequester Without Equal Spending Cuts

In November of 2011 the President told the press that there would be no “easy off ramps” to get out of the sequester. The White House explained the speech in very partisan terms: “Republicans continue to insist on protecting tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, preventing Congress from reaching an agreement to further reduce our deficit.”

Now the President has done multiple speeches asking Congress to find any way to avoid the sequester. Transcript below:

“Already some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one. We need to keep the pressure up to compromise, not turn off the pressure. The only way these spending cuts will not take place is if Congress gets back to work and agrees on a balanced plan to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2T. That’s exactly what they need to do. That’s the job they promised to do, and they’ve still got a year to at least figure it out.”