Senator Lamar Alexander, On Fox News’ “America’s News HQ” with Shannon Bream on Sunday, said the sequester demonstrates a “colossal failure of presidential leadership” and called on President Obama to send to Congress a plan to replace the automatic cuts, and to address what Senator Alexander called out-of-control entitlement spending.
“The problem is the president has profited politically, so far, for blaming other people for problems he has caused,” Senator Alexander said. “But I predict that won’t last forever. Colossal failures of presidential leadership will be a blot on his legacy.”
Senator Alexander said the president has had more than a year to propose an alternative to the automatic spending cuts put in place by the Budget Control Act of 2011. He said the president should propose an alternative plan to enact the same level of cuts in ways that would be less harmful, and also produce a plan to address out-of-control entitlement spending led by Medicare.
“He could send us a plan tomorrow, and we could have back to him a result within a couple of weeks,” Senator Alexander said. “He could do what Senator Corker and I have done, which is suggest a $1 trillion reduction in spending increases on mandatory spending. He’s doing none of that. He’s accepting no responsibility – he’s not acting like a president of the United States is supposed to act.”
The senator was referring to the “Fiscal Sustainability Act” he has proposed with fellow Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker. Senator Alexander is also a cosponsor of a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the “No Budget, No Pay Act,” which would cut off pay to members of Congress if they don’t pass a budget and appropriations bills to provide oversight of federal spending.