Speaker Boehner on Tuesday. (Win McNamee/Getty)
If the level of crisis is measured by the severity of John Boehner’s language, then the sequester still hasn’t reached the level of the fiscal cliff, when the House Speaker told Harry Reid, “Go f--k yourself.” Boehner said in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday that the House will not be taking up the looming budget cuts known as the sequester for the third time before the “Senate gets off their ass and passes it once.” Boehner knocked Senate Democrats and President Obama for not having a plan to avoid the sequester, while Obama shifted blame back to Boehner and congressional Republicans for refusing to increase taxes. If no deal is reached before March 1, some $85 billion worth of automatic spending cuts will kick in, hitting nearly every government program.