Boehner urges Senate to get 'off their ass' and do something on sequester

Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) called on President Barack Obama and the Democratically-led U.S. Senate take action to avoid the sequester on Tuesday, asking what it will take for the Senate to "get off their ass" and do something.

The sequester is a set of rapidly approaching across-the-board spending cuts that will take place automatically if the House and Senate do not meet the requirements specified in the Budget Control Act (BCA) of August 2011. The $1.2 trillion in cuts will be taken from the domestic and defense budgets over a 10 year period should the government fail to settle on a compromise spending bill.

Boehner said that while he and his House associates have been working to create a spending bill in Washington, the president is "traveling all over the country, today going down to Newport News in order to use our military men and women as a prop in yet another campaign rally to support his tax hikes."

Boehner insisted that "if the president gets more money, he's just going to spend it," and therefore the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is obliged to oppose any measure the president takes to increase revenue.

He went on to say that Obama has known "for 16 months" that the sequester was "looming," and accused the president of wasting his time traveling around the country promoting his ideas rather that "sitting down with Senate leaders" and hammering out a budget plan to please Republicans and Democrats alike.

"We have moved the bill in the House twice," he said. "We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something."

Obama and Senate Democrats have rejected the House proposals on the basis that they contain too many tax loopholes for corporations and the wealthy.

Watch the video, embedded below via YouTube: