When Gov. Mitt Romney pointed out the devastating $1 trillion in cuts set to hit our military via sequestration, Obama stated flatly, “[those] cuts will not happen.”

The cuts, which are the result of Obama’s failure to lead on deficit reduction, were signed into law by the President on August 2, 2011. The sequestration cuts are the result of Congress not passing a budget with $1.2 trillion in spending cuts; the automatic sequestration cuts hit both discretionary and vital areas of government spending.

Because the cuts are law according to the Budget Control Act, they cannot simply be ignored; they cannot simply “not happen.”

The only way the cuts can be avoided is if Congress passes a new law before Jan. 2. But the problem with this is that Obama has “threatened to veto any law that doesn’t replace sequestration with alternative deficit reduction.” In other words, upon signing sequestration into law, Obama hedged his bet in a way that makes it all but impossible to reverse.

Congress has not passed a budget in 1,272 days as of the date of this presidential debate. Several budgets have been passed by the Republican-controlled House, but Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) has declined voting on any budget bill until after the November election.

Obama owns the sequestered military cuts. They are the result of his failure to lead.