Four days from the onset of the so-called “sequester,” a series of wide-ranging across-the-board budget cuts, politicians from both parties spent Monday talking about how ill-advised it would be to allow the cuts to proceed.
But they appeared to be making little—or no—progress toward preventing them.
Video
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano made an appearance at the White House briefing on Monday, warning of the implications of sequestration on her department.
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Josh Hicks
FEDERAL EYE | Deep automatic spending cuts will begin on Friday if Congress fails to reach a deal.
Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake
THE FIX | The sequester is bad news. Everyone knows it. Except that it might not be.
Zachary A. Goldfarb and Paul Kane
Obama launches a last-ditch effort to pressure Republicans to compromise to stop the across-the-board cuts.
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WONKBLOG | You have questions about the automatic spending cuts set to take effect next month, we've got answers.
At the White House, President Obama told a gathering of the nation’s governors that “Congress is poised to allow a series of arbitrary, automatic budget cuts to kick in that will slow our economy, eliminate good jobs and leave a lot of folks who are already pretty thinly stretched scrambling to figure out what to do.”
Obama urged the governors to lobby their state’s Congressional delegations, telling them, “These cuts do not have to happen. Congress can turn them off anytime with just a little bit of compromise.”
On the Republican side, a trio of governors on Monday argued that Obama was trying to frighten the public about the impact of the cuts, and urged him to continue pursuing alternate spending reductions as they criticized his call for new tax revenue.
“I think he’s trying to scare the American people,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) told reporters at a Republican Governors Association news conference following a meeting with Obama at the White House.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), vice chairman of the RGA, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) appeared alongside Jindal and echoed his criticism of the president.
“My kids could find 83 billion dollars” to cut “from a four-trillion-dollar budget,” Haley said.
The deep cuts, split evenly between defense and domestic spendingare set to beginFriday, unless lawmakers act to avert them. Democrats are advocating a mix of new tax revenues and alternate spending reductions as a means of avoiding the sequester. Republicans are opposed to any tax increases.
Obama has an “insatiable appetite for new revenues,” Jindal, the chairman of the RGA, said.
The sequester involves about $85 billion in cuts, roughly split between military and non-military domestic programs. It was imposed in the 2011 deal that ended the debt-ceiling crisis. The cuts were meant as a scare tactic, not as a real-world policy: they were so deep and so painful, it was believed, that the two parties would be forced to replace them with something else.
That didn’t happen.
On Monday, the Obama administration continued its effort to detail the harmful consequences of the cuts. Over the weekend, it released a state-by-state breakdown of the projected impact. On Monday, it released an agency-by-agency breakdown.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano warned Monday that her agency would be forced to furlough 5,000 border control agents under the mandatory spending cuts. She said that likely would allow more illegal immigrants and potentially compromise national security.
Napolitano said the cuts also would disrupt Homeland Security’s ability to conduct customs inspections at ports, leading to increased wait times for travelers and cargo shipments. Disaster relief funding would be reduced by $1 billion, she added, meaning relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy and tornados in Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., could be cut.
But they appeared to be making little—or no—progress toward preventing them.
Video
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano made an appearance at the White House briefing on Monday, warning of the implications of sequestration on her department.
Related Stories
Josh Hicks FEDERAL EYE | Deep automatic spending cuts will begin on Friday if Congress fails to reach a deal.
Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake THE FIX | The sequester is bad news. Everyone knows it. Except that it might not be.
Zachary A. Goldfarb and Paul Kane Obama launches a last-ditch effort to pressure Republicans to compromise to stop the across-the-board cuts.
Dylan Matthews WONKBLOG | You have questions about the automatic spending cuts set to take effect next month, we've got answers.
At the White House, President Obama told a gathering of the nation’s governors that “Congress is poised to allow a series of arbitrary, automatic budget cuts to kick in that will slow our economy, eliminate good jobs and leave a lot of folks who are already pretty thinly stretched scrambling to figure out what to do.”
Obama urged the governors to lobby their state’s Congressional delegations, telling them, “These cuts do not have to happen. Congress can turn them off anytime with just a little bit of compromise.”
On the Republican side, a trio of governors on Monday argued that Obama was trying to frighten the public about the impact of the cuts, and urged him to continue pursuing alternate spending reductions as they criticized his call for new tax revenue.
“I think he’s trying to scare the American people,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) told reporters at a Republican Governors Association news conference following a meeting with Obama at the White House.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), vice chairman of the RGA, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) appeared alongside Jindal and echoed his criticism of the president.
“My kids could find 83 billion dollars” to cut “from a four-trillion-dollar budget,” Haley said.
The deep cuts, split evenly between defense and domestic spendingare set to beginFriday, unless lawmakers act to avert them. Democrats are advocating a mix of new tax revenues and alternate spending reductions as a means of avoiding the sequester. Republicans are opposed to any tax increases.
Obama has an “insatiable appetite for new revenues,” Jindal, the chairman of the RGA, said.
The sequester involves about $85 billion in cuts, roughly split between military and non-military domestic programs. It was imposed in the 2011 deal that ended the debt-ceiling crisis. The cuts were meant as a scare tactic, not as a real-world policy: they were so deep and so painful, it was believed, that the two parties would be forced to replace them with something else.
That didn’t happen.
On Monday, the Obama administration continued its effort to detail the harmful consequences of the cuts. Over the weekend, it released a state-by-state breakdown of the projected impact. On Monday, it released an agency-by-agency breakdown.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano warned Monday that her agency would be forced to furlough 5,000 border control agents under the mandatory spending cuts. She said that likely would allow more illegal immigrants and potentially compromise national security.
Napolitano said the cuts also would disrupt Homeland Security’s ability to conduct customs inspections at ports, leading to increased wait times for travelers and cargo shipments. Disaster relief funding would be reduced by $1 billion, she added, meaning relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy and tornados in Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., could be cut.