'Fox & Friends': White House canceled tours so kids suffer with 'maximum pain'

The hosts of Fox & Friends on Wednesday blasted an Obama administration effort to prevent Secret Service furloughs by suspending White House tours as a plan to make children suffer with "maximum pain."

NBC News on Tuesday reported that White House tours had been canceled due to budget cuts from the so-called sequester to "reduce overtime costs and may reduce the number of furloughs the Secret Service could potentially face."

But on Wednesday, Fox News hosts Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade lashed out at the White House for what they called a "childish" stunt.

Kilmeade opined that White House tours were self-guided and "the cheapest thing in the world," but he said the Obama administration "wanted maximum pain so they say cut that off."

"It's so childish," Carlson lamented. "Most people who are going to suffer from this are the kids. These are planned school field trips from long ago. Imagine if you're one of these kids now who gets the news. But is the intention? And I think this is what is so frustrating to so many Americans. Somebody alluded to the fact of putting your big boy pants on the other day, come on, can we just be adults about this and come together to a table and say, 'Hey, how can we do this more responsibly'?"

While they accused the White House of not being "adults" for trying to prevent Secret Service furloughs, the Fox & Friends hosts praised Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who has proposed an amendment to ban President Barack Obama from playing golf until tours resume.

"Look, the White House was begging for open season on what they spend money on by saying, 'Okay, we're going to turn off the White House tours,'" Doocy insisted. "Personally, I think Louie Gohmert's bill is hilarious."

According to the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), children around the country will be hit hard by the automatic sequestration cuts that Congress agreed to as a part of a 2011 deal to raise the debt ceiling.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) welfare program, foster care payments and block grants to assist low-income families with child care will all face millions in cuts.

Watch this video from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast March 6, 2013.

(h/t: Mediaite)