Republican Governors Urging GOP to Avoid Sequester

     The GOP was not at all happy when a former GOP Senator turned Obama Transportation Secretary warned in vivid detail about the impact the sequester would have on transportation and safety like delaying flights and cutting back on air traffic control.

    They must be even less excited about the Republican governors who are now urging them to get back to the negotiating table. While they are still blaming President for the sequester, they are no longer putting it all on him:

     ?With the sequester set to hit this week, the White House will intensify its public campaign to draw attention to how the cuts will bring the hammer down on state budgets. So one outstanding question is this: Will Republican governors put pressure on the Congressional GOP to agree to new revenues?"

     "Politico has a roundup of quotes from Republican governors, and some seem to be edging up ever so gingerly to the idea. They don’t say so in those terms, but many of them are urging all parties to come to the table to make a deal. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is urging lawmakers to figure out a way to avert the sequester, but as Politico notes, he no longer appears to be willing to blame only Obama for the current standoff."

     "McDonnell is particularly interesting because he has just completed a deal in his state for a sweeping transportation bill financed largely by higher sales and car taxes. Given that McDonnell represents a state that will be hit hard by the sequester, Dems hope he’ll urge Congressional Republicans to compromise on revenues, too. If McDonnell is willing to agree to new revenues to make governing possible, which is earning him props for placing pragmatic problem-solving over ideology, why not urge Congressional Republicans to do the same, particularly since his state is in the sequester’s crosshairs?"

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/02/25/the-morning-plum-republican-governors-urge-gop-to-act-on-sequesetr/

     Jan Breuer seems to come closet to arguing for more revenue:

       "You don’t give me very good choices…As a governor from a western state, it is difficult for me to be honest and say ok, I know all the answers, because I don’t have all the inside baseball games, and for me to sit here and say I know every detail of what they’re dealing with there… We don’t like taxes. We don’t like increase in taxes. But we know we have to be pragmatic. We know there has to be some kind of compromise, but dang it, they need to get the job done. they don’t need to leave the public out their hanging."

       http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/24/1631701/tea-party-governor-calls-for-gop-to-compromise-on-taxes-to-avert-sequester-cuts/

     The military cuts will really hurt states like McDonnell's Viriginia as well. Some have argued that an overlooked area of Republican strength in recent years has been at the state level.

      http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=19538

       Yet, we've often seen GOP governors go their own way in distinction to the national party. We have the example of Chris Christy whose popularity is largely to thank for this stance, along with the recent Republican Governors who have accepted ObamaCare's Medicare expansion in their states, most notably recently Rick Scott of Florida who had been a vocal opponent of it for 4 years. 

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/rick-scott-obamacare-quotes_n_2756006.html