http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/282109-gop-rep-cole-absolutely-no-new-tax-revenues-in-sequester-replacement
Cole went on to say that the sense among Republicans was that they now held the leverage in negotiations, and felt no inclination to again open the issue of new revenues. Democrats, including President Obama, have called for a "balanced" package that would replace the sequester with a combination of spending cuts and closing tax code loopholes and deductions.
and....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10651925
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-sequester-will-be-a-shellacking-consumers-and-businesses-2013-2
During the budget standoff between President Bill Clinton and congressional Republican leaders back in 1995 and 1996, widespread layoffs of federal workers played havoc with the federal bureaucracy and posed serious hardship and inconvenience for millions of taxpayers across the country. Furloughs of as many as 800,000 federal employees temporarily shut down large swaths of the federal bureaucracy and delivered a serious blow to the economy.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-09/paul-krugman-we-should-kick-can-down-road-it%E2%80%99s-responsible-thing-do
( This guy actually received a nobel prize for economics - no wonder its called the dismal science... )
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/09/2013 13:17 -0500
and....
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/340113/call-obama-s-sequester-bluff-charles-krauthammer
( Naturally the GOP will do the opposite .....)
Call Obama’s Sequester Bluff
The sequester was the president’s idea. He has to own it.
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The Republicans finally have leverage. They should use it. Obama capitalized on the automaticity of the expiring Bush tax cuts to get what he wanted at the fiscal cliff — higher tax rates. Republicans now have automaticity on their side.
If they do nothing, the $1.2 trillion in cuts go into effect. This is the one time Republicans can get cuts under an administration that has no intent of cutting anything. Get them while you can.
Of course, the sequester is terrible policy. The domestic cuts will be crude and the Pentagon cuts damaging. This is why the Republican House has twice passed bills offering more rationally allocated cuts. (They curb, for example, entitlement spending as well.)
Naturally, the Democratic Senate, which hasn’t passed a budget since before the iPad, has done nothing. Nor has the president — until his Tuesday plea.
The GOP should reject it out of hand and plainly explain (message No. 2): We are quite prepared to cut elsewhere. But we already raised taxes last month. If the president wants to avoid the sequester — as we do — he must offer a substitute set of cuts.
and....
http://news.usni.org/2013/02/08/navy-lincoln-refueling-delayed-will-hurt-carrier-readiness
By: USNI News Editor
The aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), USS Enterprise (CVN 65), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) are in port at Naval Station Norfolk, Va. US Navy Photo
GOP Rep. Cole: ‘Absolutely’ no new tax revenues in sequester replacement
- 02/10/13 10:51 AM ET
Deputy Majority Whip Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Sunday that House Republicans would “absolutely” not accept new revenues as part of a deal to avoid the $85 billion in automatic cuts to the federal budget set to take effect in three weeks.
“Absolutely not,” Cole said on ABC News's "This Week." “The president accepted no spending cuts back in the ‘fiscal cliff’ deal 45 days ago, so you get no spending cuts back then, then you’re going to get no revenue now.”
Cole went on to say that the sense among Republicans was that they now held the leverage in negotiations, and felt no inclination to again open the issue of new revenues. Democrats, including President Obama, have called for a "balanced" package that would replace the sequester with a combination of spending cuts and closing tax code loopholes and deductions.
"Politically, Democrats are exactly where Republicans were six weeks ago. taxes were going up by law… now these cuts are going to happen by law, and it's a law the president signed," Cole said.
Cole also said President Obama and Senate Democrats were responsible for proposing alternative spending cuts if they wanted to avoid the blunt across-the-board reductions.
"They haven't been able to pass anything, they haven't been able to propose anything," Cole said.
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), also appearing on the show, warned sequestration would cause a retraction of the economy and the loss of 600,000 jobs.
“It’s going to do everything opposite from what your party says that they want,” Ellison said. “It’s going to increase unemployment, it’s going to increase uncertainty."
Stephanie Cutter, the deputy campaign manager for President Obama's re-election effort, also objected to Cole's assertion that the sequester was the president's idea. Cutter said the sequester was intended to compel a deal and never intended to actually go into place.
"This was an enforcement mechanism for Congress to ... finally come together to pass deficit reduction," Cutter said.
Cutter also hinted that President Obama would address the issue in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.
"We can't have any more self-inflicted wounds on this economy," Cutter said.
and....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10651925
Obama asks Congress for short-term budget fix
JOSH LEDERMAN
Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is pressing Congress to pass another short-term mix of spending cuts and tax changes while they hash out a broader budget deal.
Lawmakers face a March 1 deadline when automatic, across-the-board spending cuts, already postponed once, take effect.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says he still wants a comprehensive package that deals with the debt. But he says that takes time. He's asking lawmakers to move forward with a short-term deal as they continue working on a longer-term solution.
He says if the cuts aren't averted, the military, middle-class families and the economy could suffer.
In the Republican address, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska says the U.S. must ramp up domestic energy production by streamlining regulations, investing in research and approving the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to Texas.
The Sequester Will Be A Shellacking For Consumers And Businesses
During the budget standoff between President Bill Clinton and congressional Republican leaders back in 1995 and 1996, widespread layoffs of federal workers played havoc with the federal bureaucracy and posed serious hardship and inconvenience for millions of taxpayers across the country. Furloughs of as many as 800,000 federal employees temporarily shut down large swaths of the federal bureaucracy and delivered a serious blow to the economy.
The most visible signs of that government crisis were the closing of the Washington Monument and 368 National Park sites around the country. But the impact of the furloughs was far more serious than that:
Health and welfare services for military veterans were curtailed; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped disease surveillance; new clinical research patients were not accepted at the National Institutes of Health; toxic waste clean-up work at 609 sites was halted; the U.S. Border Patrol put off hiring 400 new agents, and 200,000 applications for U.S. passports went unanswered.
As President Obama and Republican congressional leaders clash this week over whether to allow $85 billion of across the board cuts in defense and domestic spending to take hold beginning March 1, government workers and taxpayers across the country are again facing the specter of widespread government furloughs that could once again disrupt the economy and the lives of millions of Americans.
For sure, there is disagreement over whether massive temporary layoffs and tough government belt-tightening is a good or bad thing in the midst of a shaky economic recovery. After months of fretting over the national security and economic implications of tough, across the board spending cuts and layoffs, many Republicans came to the conclusion that these automatic cuts or sequestration may be the best answer for enforcing fiscal constraint and bringing the trillion dollar annual deficit down.
If the answer turns out to be at least a month or two of deep, automatic cuts in defense and domestic spending, then widespread furloughs will be the government’s main response. In effect, a furlough is the federal government’s personnel weapon of choice in coping with major budget crises like the looming sequestration or even rarer government shutdowns.
An administrative furlough is a carefully planned strategy for weathering fiscal crises by temporarily placing targeted workers on unpaid leave after issuing 30-day notices. A furlough is considered to be an alternative to layoff, according to management experts. When an employer furloughs employees, it requires them to work fewer hours or to take a certain amount of unpaid time off. Generally, the management theory is to have the majority of employees share some hardship as opposed to a few employees losing their jobs completely.
Unlike a reduction in force or RIF, federal officials can pick and choose who to furlough– and for how long. And they don’t have to be concerned about honoring seniority or military service, or having to provide fired workers with severance pay or other benefits that add to the government’s overall costs.
Unlike a reduction in force or RIF, federal officials can pick and choose who to furlough– and for how long. And they don’t have to be concerned about honoring seniority or military service, or having to provide fired workers with severance pay or other benefits that add to the government’s overall costs.
“A reduction in force is not a useful management tool as a cost-saving mechanism in the short term,” Palguta said. “A federal manager may have some great young employees who are doing five times the work of anybody else, but they’re the newest employees, they have the least tenure, they’re not veterans. So you have to separate them.”
Acting White House Budget Director Jeffrey Zients warned in a Jan. 4 memorandum that federal agencies this time will likely need to furlough “hundreds of thousands of employees” while reducing services – such as food inspections, air travel safety, prison security, border patrol and other “mission-critical” activities.
The Department of Defense, the Interior Department and other major federal agencies have put out similar warnings to their employees and contractors, and the Pentagon began cutting back on spending and putting off new contracts and hiring in anticipation of the deep cuts. Government and industry experts predict that sequestration could cost the economy at least one million government and private sector jobs in the coming year.
“This is not a game, this is reality,” retiring Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta declared in a speech at Georgetown University on Wednesday, as he warned that the cuts would curtail U.S. naval operations in the western Pacific by as much as a third and force one-month furloughs for as many as 800,000 Pentagon civilian employees beginning this spring.
Government officials, major defense contractors and policy think tanks have warned that – if allowed to occur –sequestration would result in the loss of a million or more jobs across the country in the coming year. The anticipation of a sharp reduction in government spending already has begun to hurt the economy, with the gross domestic product contracting by 0.1 percent during the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a government report released last week.
The two largest federal labor unions are preparing to exercise their bargaining rights if agencies decide to furlough employees because of sequestration budget cuts, according to the Washington Post. The National Treasury Employees Union and the American Federation of Government Employees say they will work aggressively to soften the blow of potential furloughs and other changes prompted by the cuts.
The two largest federal labor unions are preparing to exercise their bargaining rights if agencies decide to furlough employees because of sequestration budget cuts, according to the Washington Post. The National Treasury Employees Union and the American Federation of Government Employees say they will work aggressively to soften the blow of potential furloughs and other changes prompted by the cuts.
Sequestration could begin in early March unless Congress delays or revokes it, and some agencies have raised the prospect of putting practically all of their employees on furloughs as a money-saving move. While most agencies haven’t said how many unpaid days they might order, or when, several Defense Department sections have projected furloughing employees for one day a week over 22 weeks, from the third week of April through September, according to the Post. But in unionized workplaces many of the details would be negotiable.
To those in the private sector who have been “downsized” or laid off, the idea of being furloughed one-day a week from a guaranteed union job seems like a cake-walk. You continue to get health benefits for yourself and your family, and other benefits like contributions to your 401K contributions continue.
The antiquated federal system of government gives preferences to seniority rather than performance and hasn’t kept up with new techniques and technologies that allow for a streamlined and more efficient workforce. Many agencies do not follow standard financial procedures and are not held accountable for failure. The Government Accountability Office actually highlights major areas that are at high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement, or are in need of broad reform. There are now 30 areas on GAO's High Risk list.
To top it off, there are no contingency management plans in the current federal system that allow agency directors to deal effectively with a sequester. As a result, the most absurd and draconian cuts are likely to take place out of default, not design, and once again, the country loses.
Beyond the threat of a further decline in the workforce, lawmakers and government officials say that the furloughs would pose major inconvenience and problems for many Americans. These include:
About a 10 percent reduction in the FAA’s 40,000-man workforce
A 25 percent decline in Coast Guard air and surface operations
An increase in waiting times at the nation’s busiest airports by as much as three hours with the furloughing of customs agents
Elimination of Head Start programs for some 70,000 disadvantaged children
The shuttering of food plants that won’t be able to operate without federal meat and poultry inspectors.
Reduction in embassy security as the State Department will be forced to absorb a $168 million reduction in funding for that purpose.
Cutbacks in clerks and other personnel to process applications for Social Security and Medicare, or to process paper tax returns or field taxpayers’ questions at the Internal Revenue Service.
Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to quickly pass a new package of limited spending cuts and tax increases to head blunt or block implementation of the across the board spending cuts, but House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and other GOP leaders are resisting any compromise that includes more tax increases. If the negotiations continue well past the March 1 deadline, federal departments and agencies will have to make tough choices in determining who to keep at work and who to send home – and for how long..
“It literally could be tens of thousands – maybe even hundreds of thousands of people furloughed, if sequestration carries through the rest of the fiscal year,” Palguta said. “But there are a lot of variables . . . and at the end of the day there’s no way to accurately predict what the impact will be.”
and......
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-09/paul-krugman-we-should-kick-can-down-road-it%E2%80%99s-responsible-thing-do
( This guy actually received a nobel prize for economics - no wonder its called the dismal science... )
Paul Krugman: "We Should Kick The Can Down The Road. It’s The Responsible Thing To Do"
- Congressional Budget Office
- Federal Reserve
- Global Economy
- Great Depression
- Ireland
- John McCain
- keynesianism
- Krugman
- Monetary Policy
- New York Times
- Paul Krugman
- Rating Agencies
- recovery
The below article, recreated in its grotesque entirety, is a real, serious Op-Ed written by a supposedly real, non page-view trolling, Nobel-prize winning economist, in a seriouspaper, the New York Times. It can be classified with one word: jaw-dropping.
We can only hope that some time in the next five years, when the global economy is in ashes following the implosion of the final central bank bubble, that the US department of injustice will prosecute authors of such drivel (and all those sell-side analysts who have had Buy recommendations in the 2009-2013 period) with the same ferocity it has demonstrated toward those US-downgrading rating agencies, which are now supposed to be solely accountable for the Second Great Depression and the $30 trillion or so in misallocated capital in the past five years.
Kick That Can
By Paul Krugman
John Boehner, the speaker of the House, claims to be exasperated. “At some point, Washington has to deal with its spending problem,” he said Wednesday. “I’ve watched them kick this can down the road for 22 years since I’ve been here. I’ve had enough of it. It’s time to act.”
Actually, Mr. Boehner needs to refresh his memory. During the first decade of his time in Congress, the U.S. government was doing just fine on the fiscal front. In particular, the ratio of federal debt to G.D.P. was a third lower when Bill Clinton left office than it was when he came in. It was only when George W. Bush arrived and squandered the Clinton surplus on tax cuts and unfunded wars that the budget outlook began deteriorating again.
But that’s a secondary issue. The key point is this: While it’s true that we will eventually need some combination of revenue increases and spending cuts to rein in the growth of U.S. government debt, now is very much not the time to act. Given the state we’re in, it would be irresponsible and destructive not to kick that can down the road.
Start with a basic point: Slashing government spending destroys jobs and causes the economy to shrink.
This really isn’t a debatable proposition at this point. The contractionary effects of fiscal austerity have been demonstrated by study after study and overwhelmingly confirmed by recent experience — for example, by the severe and continuing slump in Ireland, which was for a while touted as a shining example of responsible policy, or by the way the Cameron government’s turn to austerity derailed recovery in Britain.
Even Republicans admit, albeit selectively, that spending cuts hurt employment. ThusJohn McCain warned earlier this week that the defense cuts scheduled to happen under the budget sequester would cause the loss of a million jobs. It’s true that Republicans often seem to believe in “weaponized Keynesianism,” a doctrine under which military spending, and only military spending, creates jobs. But that is, of course, nonsense. By talking about job losses from defense cuts, the G.O.P. has already conceded the principle of the thing.
Still, won’t spending cuts (or tax increases) cost jobs whenever they take place, so we might as well bite the bullet now? The answer is no — given the state of our economy, this is a uniquely bad time for austerity.
One way to see this is to compare today’s economic situation with the environment prevailing during an earlier round of defense cuts: the big winding down of military spending in the late 1980s and early 1990s, following the end of the cold war. Those spending cuts destroyed jobs, too, with especially severe consequences in places like southern California that relied heavily on defense contracts. At the national level, however, the effects were softened by monetary policy: the Federal Reserve cut interest rates more or less in tandem with the spending cuts, helping to boost private spending and minimize the overall adverse effect.
Today, by contrast, we’re still living in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and the Fed, in its effort to fight the slump, has already cut interest rates as far as it can — basically to zero. So the Fed can’t blunt the job-destroying effects of spending cuts, which would hit with full force.
The point, again, is that now is very much not the time to act; fiscal austerity should wait until the economy has recovered, and the Fed can once again cushion the impact.
But aren’t we facing a fiscal crisis? No, not at all. The federal government can borrow more cheaply than at almost any point in history, and medium-term forecasts, like the 10-year projections released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office, are distinctly not alarming. Yes, there’s a long-term fiscal problem, but it’s not urgent that we resolve that long-term problem right now. The alleged fiscal crisis exists only in the minds of Beltway insiders.
Still, even if we should put off spending cuts for now, wouldn’t it be a good thing if our politicians could simultaneously agree on a long-term fiscal plan? Indeed, it would. It would also be a good thing if we had peace on earth and universal marital fidelity. In the real world, Republican senators are saying that the situation is desperate — but not desperate enough to justify even a penny in additional taxes. Do these sound like men ready and willing to reach a grand fiscal bargain?
Realistically, we’re not going to resolve our long-run fiscal issues any time soon, which is O.K. — not ideal, but nothing terrible will happen if we don’t fix everything this year. Meanwhile, we face the imminent threat of severe economic damage from short-term spending cuts.
So we should avoid that damage by kicking the can down the road. It’s the responsible thing to do.
and....
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/340113/call-obama-s-sequester-bluff-charles-krauthammer
( Naturally the GOP will do the opposite .....)
The sequester was the president’s idea. He has to own it.
Follow• 225210 followers
Text 
For the first time since Election Day, President Obama is on the defensive. That’s because on March 1, automatic spending cuts (“sequestration”) go into effect — $1.2 trillion over ten years, half from domestic (discretionary) programs, half from defense.
The idea had been proposed and promoted by the White House during the July 2011 debt-ceiling negotiations. The political calculation was that such draconian defense cuts would drive the GOP to offer concessions.
It backfired. The Republicans have offered no concessions. Obama’s bluff is being called and he’s the desperate party. He abhors the domestic cuts. And as commander-in-chief he must worry about indiscriminate Pentagon cuts that his own defense secretary calls catastrophic.
So Tuesday, Obama urgently called on Congress to head off the sequester with a short-term fix. But instead of offering an alternative $1.2 trillion in cuts, Obama demanded a “balanced approach,” coupling any cuts with new tax increases.
What should the Republicans do? Nothing.
Republicans should explain — message No. 1 — that in the fiscal-cliff deal the president already got major tax hikes with no corresponding spending cuts. Now it is time for a nation $16 trillion in debt to cut spending. That’s balance.
It backfired. The Republicans have offered no concessions. Obama’s bluff is being called and he’s the desperate party. He abhors the domestic cuts. And as commander-in-chief he must worry about indiscriminate Pentagon cuts that his own defense secretary calls catastrophic.
So Tuesday, Obama urgently called on Congress to head off the sequester with a short-term fix. But instead of offering an alternative $1.2 trillion in cuts, Obama demanded a “balanced approach,” coupling any cuts with new tax increases.
What should the Republicans do? Nothing.
Republicans should explain — message No. 1 — that in the fiscal-cliff deal the president already got major tax hikes with no corresponding spending cuts. Now it is time for a nation $16 trillion in debt to cut spending. That’s balance.
The Republicans finally have leverage. They should use it. Obama capitalized on the automaticity of the expiring Bush tax cuts to get what he wanted at the fiscal cliff — higher tax rates. Republicans now have automaticity on their side.
If they do nothing, the $1.2 trillion in cuts go into effect. This is the one time Republicans can get cuts under an administration that has no intent of cutting anything. Get them while you can.
Of course, the sequester is terrible policy. The domestic cuts will be crude and the Pentagon cuts damaging. This is why the Republican House has twice passed bills offering more rationally allocated cuts. (They curb, for example, entitlement spending as well.)
Naturally, the Democratic Senate, which hasn’t passed a budget since before the iPad, has done nothing. Nor has the president — until his Tuesday plea.
The GOP should reject it out of hand and plainly explain (message No. 2): We are quite prepared to cut elsewhere. But we already raised taxes last month. If the president wants to avoid the sequester — as we do — he must offer a substitute set of cuts.
Otherwise, Mr. President, there is nothing to discuss. Your sequester — Republicans need to reiterate that the sequester was the president’s idea in the first place — will go ahead.
Obama is trying to sell his “balanced” approach with a linguistic sleight-of-hand. He insists on calling his proposed tax hikes — through eliminating deductions and exemptions — “tax reform.”
Obama is trying to sell his “balanced” approach with a linguistic sleight-of-hand. He insists on calling his proposed tax hikes — through eliminating deductions and exemptions — “tax reform.”
and....
http://news.usni.org/2013/02/08/navy-lincoln-refueling-delayed-will-hurt-carrier-readiness
Navy: Lincoln Refueling Delayed, Will Hurt Carrier Readiness
By: USNI News Editor
The aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), USS Enterprise (CVN 65), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) are in port at Naval Station Norfolk, Va. US Navy Photo
The U.S. Navy will delay the refueling of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) for an unknown period because of the uncertain fiscal environment due to the ongoing legislative struggle, the service told Congress in a Friday message obtained by USNI News.
Lincoln was scheduled to be moved to Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Newport News Shipyard later this month to begin the 4-year refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) of the ship.
“This delay is due to uncertainty in the Fiscal Year 2013 appropriations bill, both in the timing and funding level available for the first full year of the contract,” the message said.“CVN-72 will remain at Norfolk Naval Base where the ships force personnel will continue to conduct routine maintenance until sufficient funding is received for the initial execution of the RCOH.”
Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee released a statement denouncing the need for decision.
Forbes called the delay, “another example of how these reckless and irresponsible defense cuts in Washington will have a long-term impact on the Navy’s ability to perform its missions. Not only will the Lincoln be delayed in returning to the Fleet, but this decision will also affect the USSEnterprise (CVN-65) defueling, the USS George Washington (CVN-73) RCOH, and future carrier readiness.”
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/281975-white-house-warns-sequester-would-disrupt-life-of-nation
White House warns sequester would disrupt life of nation
- 02/08/13 02:03 PM ET
The White House warned Friday that allowing the $85 billion sequester to happen would devastate the economy and disrupt the everyday lives of millions of people.
In a move intended to intensify pressure on Congress to prevent looming spending cuts set for March 1, White House officials told reporters the cuts would hamper law enforcement, hurt federal education programs, withhold mental health services and furlough thousands of workers.
The officials also said there would be nothing they could do to soften the pain if the sequester happens.
“The blunt, irresponsible nature of sequestration means we can't plan our way out of sequestration or take steps to soften their blow,” Danny Werfel, federal controller of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters. “These large and arbitrary cuts will have severe impacts across the government."
President Obama hammered the point home at a farewell ceremony for outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta later Friday afternoon, saying there was "no reason for that to happen."
"Now is the time for Democrats and Republicans to come together....solving problems to do right for the country and not for any particular agenda," Obama said.
At a press briefing earlier in the day, Werfel warned of sweeping cutbacks to the paychecks of federal workers and contractors.
“There's no way to implement the sequester without significant furlough of hundreds of thousands of [federal] employees,” he said.
But the administration also said there would be dire consequences for the nation in general.
In a fact sheet, the administration said some 373,000 “seriously mentally ill adults” and “emotionally disturbed children” would go untreated because of cuts in health care spending. Thousands of fewer food safety inspections would occur, and the FBI would see a workforce reduction of some 1,000 agents.
Social safety net programs for the poor would be among the hardest hit by the sequester. More than half a million women and children would be dropped from food assistance programs, and 125,000 low-income families receiving rental assistance would lose their aid. Recipients of long-term unemployment would see benefits decrease by an average of $400, and more than 100,000 formerly homeless people would be removed from their current housing and emergency shelter programs.
Programs for seniors — including federally-assisted programs like Meals on Wheels and offices that process Social Security and Medicare claims — could see stark cutbacks. And while most Americans are unlikely to mourn the cuts to the Internal Revenue Service that would reduce the number of audits performed, the Justice Department would furlough hundreds of federal prosecutors responsible for trying criminal crimes.
Research and education programs would also see significant reductions. Head Start services would be eliminated for approximately 70,000 children, and federal support for more than 17,000 teachers — including 7,200 special-education teachers — would be cut. The government would issue fewer research grants for health advancements, and drugs would take longer to be approved.
The White House has repeatedly argued the cuts should be avoided, but had not previously offered specific details on what it sees as the negative effects.
With just weeks to go before the cuts begin, the administration seems inclined to build up public pressure on Congress to prevent the cuts, particularly with some lawmakers becoming resigned to their implementation. After next week’s work, Congress is scheduled to recess for a week and will return with only four days to go before the cuts happen.
President Obama and Congress seem far apart from a deal, and neither side has offered a new plan to replace the cuts scheduled for this year.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said Republicans are familiar with the consequences of the sequester, and faulted Obama for not offering his own plan to prevent them.
“We know the president’s sequester will have consequences. What we don’t know is when the president will propose a plan to replace the sequester with smarter spending cuts and reforms," he said.
Obama this week called on Congress to replace the cuts with a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts, but Republicans in Congress say they will accept no new tax hikes, particularly after a "fiscal cliff" deal in January that raised taxes.
Republicans argue they approved a sequester replacement bill in the last Congress, and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), while decrying the sequester, this week said it would be better for it to take effect than to introduce more tax hikes to replace it.
"The president is out of excuses," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Boehner. "We're glad they're laying out the devastating consequences of the president’s sequester, but the question remains: what are they willing to do to prevent it ?"
Republican press aides on Capitol Hill used social media in an attempt to pin blame for the looming cuts on President Obama, switching their Facebook and Twitter avatars to a passage from Bob Woodward's book that reports the sequester was first proposed by the White House.
Pressed about whether the president would veto a deal from Congress that contained only spending cuts, White House press secretary Jay Carney would not explicitly issue one, but stressed getting a balance was "essential."
He also accused Republican leaders of "amnesia" on Twitter, pointing out that GOP leaders including Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca
Individual agencies and departments are in the midst of planning how they would implement their sequester cuts, and the extent to which programs and employees would be affected.
It's likely that furloughs would not be implemented immediately — Werfel said that under the law, workers would be entitled a 30-day notice — but the White House described cutbacks as an inevitability if the sequestration went into effect.
The White House also argued that sequestration would lead to the loss of hundreds of thousands of federal and contracting jobs and deal a blow to the overall economy, pointing to recent fourth-quarter gross domestic product projections — dragged down by a slowing of defense spending — as evidence of the danger.
