Remember Sequestration? Republicans Don't

Remember how Congress, on a bipartisan basis, agreed to automatic sharp cuts in programs of value to both parties, both defense and non-defense programs, for a period of 10 years, as compensation for failure to negotiate targeted cuts?

Well "surprise, surprise": Republicans lied. Paul Ryan announced it today. Here's Brian Beutler of TPM:

If Mitt Romney wins in November, he and a Republican Congress will fast track legislation early next year to replace across the board defense cuts with cuts to food stamps and other programs for needy Americans.

“In January our intention is that if we don’t fix it in the lame duck is to fix it retroactively once a new session of Congress takes place,” Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, told a crowd in North Carolina Thursday, “We have procedural way in the Senate to advance that legislation very quickly and get it to the next President of the United States who I believe is going to be Mitt Romney, to pass that into law and retroactively prevent that sequester from taking place in January.”

...

And fuzzy-minded Democrats, including Obama, agreed to this fool's bargain. Even the Democratic Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta rejected defense cuts altogether. It should have been obvious that no such thing would ever actually come to pass.

Do you suppose Obama will ever get tired of the "pull my finger" game played on him by Republicans? I know I am, and the smell in here is getting pretty strong...