5 reasons why the GOP might risk the sequester

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor speaks during a news conference on Feb. 13 about the pending fiscal sequestration.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

I was wrong. I thought that the GOP's financial mandarins would put enough pressure on the leadership to force another compromise with the White House to avoid the dreaded financial sequester, the series of automatic defense and non-defense cuts that kick in on March 1. But there is no one Republican Party today, and no one seems to speak for the majority of the party. Speaker of the House John Boehner wants a deal and knows he can't get one and is frustrated that the White House won't negotiate with him like it used to. Eric Cantor, his deputy, seems to be waiting to figure out what everyone else thinks.

The real influential voices in the party — those who speak for the base — want the sequester to kick in. And there are five reasons, generally, why the GOP might be willing to risk the 2014 midterm elections and their majority on simply giving up and refusing to concede.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.