President Barack Obama called during his State of the Union address for Congress to avert looming “sequestration” budget cuts in part though “bipartisan, comprehensive tax reform.”
Republicans skeptical of Obama’s approach to stopping the $1.2 trillion reduction to defense and non-defense spending–which is widely unpopular in Washington–charged in advance of his Tuesday night speech that he has not done enough to stop sequestration from starting March 1.
Obama dedicated roughly 800 words to deficit reduction and sequestration during his address to Congress and government leaders. He said the “sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness,” and hurt domestic priorities.
Obama reiterated his call for stopping the controversial cuts partly through revenue-generating tax reforms, which GOP lawmakers have resisted. He took aim at Republicans’ recent insistence on stopping sequestration only through alternate spending cuts.
The president said he supports “modest reforms” to “programs like Medicare,” but said the “wealthiest and most powerful” must also share more in the burden of deficit reduction.
He argued most “Americans–Democrats, Republicans, and Independents–understand that we can’t just cut our way to prosperity.” He maintained they “know that broad-based economic growth requires a balanced approach to deficit reduction, with spending cuts and revenue, and with everybody doing their fair share.”
An alternate deficit-cutting plan to sequestration, Obama maintained, should strive to “save hundreds of billions of dollars by getting rid of tax loopholes and deductions for the well-off and well-connected.”
“Now is our best chance for bipartisan, comprehensive tax reform that encourages job creation and helps bring down the deficit,” he said.
He rejected Republican attempts to prevent just the defense cuts in sequestration–and not the non-defense domestic cuts as well–through alternate reductions to funding for domestic spending including education.
Obama called for politicians to “set party interest aside” to stop sequestration, which he said would “cost us jobs, hurt our economy, and visit hardship on millions of hardworking Americans.”
Senate Democrats plan to release a broad proposal to stop sequestration this week that includes new revenues, through tax reforms, that Obama supports but Republicans do not like. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) smiled, without giving a direct answer, when reporters asked him after the State of the Union address if Obama’s comments in any way change the partisan fight on Capitol Hill over stopping sequestration.
“I think he has staked out our position, that we need to have a balanced approach to deficit reduction, and sequestration is disastrous,” Durbin said at the Capitol.
Durbin said his new role as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee (SAC-D) has led him to “look much more closely” at sequestration’s impact on the military. He also cited the hardship the military is undergoing because it is funded through a continuing resolution (CR) that funds it near last year’s levels and restricts its budgeting flexibility. The Pentagon wants Congress to pass a full-blown defense appropriations bill for the final months of fiscal year 2013, instead of simply extending the CR for the full year.
“Sequestration and extending the CR (for) the Department of Defense is disastrous,” Durbin said. “It really is, in terms of our readiness, in terms of a lot of key programs that we’re counting on for our military.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters yesterday that Senate Democrats will introduce a plan “later this week” that would “temporarily replace sequester with a balanced approach the American people want and deserve.”
“The bill’s being drafted (and) will include equal amounts of revenue and cuts, because Democrats believe the right way to reduce the deficit is to target waste and abuse by pairing smart spending cuts with closing tax loopholes, asking the wealthiest Americans to contribute more,” Reid said at the Capitol.
Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said in a statement, written before Obama’s speech, that he was “disappointed to hear little from Obama” on the looming deadline of March 1 for the start of sequestration cuts. He charged Obama is guilty of “disarming America.”
Inhofe faulted Obama for not delivering a detailed assessment of the cuts on the military. The senator said he is “doing all” that he can “to prevent these devastating defense cuts.” He joined with SASC and House Armed Services Committee (HASC) leaders last week in offering legislation to offset the first year of all sequestration cuts through savings garnered by reducing the federal workforce.
HASC Ranking Member Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) said he wished Obama would work “with the Congress to mitigate the damage that will be done to our military under sequestration cuts.”
McKeon, in a statement, faulted Obama for not preventing sequestration by now, saying the president is not looking enough at entitlement spending as part of deficit reduction.