Democrats frustrated about the across-the-board “sequestration” cuts set to start a week from today sought yesterday to blame Republicans for not taking up left-leaning proposals to thwart the reductions.
Republicans such as House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) have decried the decade-long cuts, of $1.2 trillion to defense and non-defense spending, but balk at Democrats’ insistence that an alternative deficit-cutting package include revenue-generating tax reforms.
“We have asked repeatedly for a vote on an alternative,” House Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said yesterday at a special House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing held on Capitol Hill during the current congressional recess week. Van Hollen addressed a panel of organizations and people that would be impacted by the cuts, including Aerospace Industries Association President and CEO Marion Blakey along with a fifth-grade teacher and state public-health official.
Van Hollen and the small group of Democrats at the hearing expressed frustration that Boehner appears ready to let sequestration start on March 1, and then continue at least temporarily, as his party tries to strengthen its hand in negotiations.
“Hopefully between now and eight days from now enough people will come to their senses and look for an alternative, and at the very least allow us to have a vote on the alternative we have presented in the House, the alternative that’s been presented in the Senate, so the American people can judge for themselves whether their members of Congress–Republicans or Democrats–are making the right decision,” Van Hollen said.
Democrats who control the Senate plan to take up legislation next week that would replace sequestration this calendar year with higher taxes on wealthy Americans and other tax reforms, as well as alternate cuts that include $27.5 billion in multi-year defense reductions. That package has been rejected by Republicans, as has a similar House Democratic plan that also calls for tax increases on wealthier Americans and the elimination of tax benefits to oil and gas companies.
Boehner has insisted anti-sequestration legislation start in the Senate. He repeated his call on Tuesday for replacing sequestration with “a plan to cut spending that will put us on the path to a budget that is balanced in 10 years”–which Democrats oppose.
The GOP leader insisted the “revenue debate is now closed,” saying Congress “should close loopholes and carve-outs in the tax code, but that revenue should be used to lower rates across the board.”
Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) both spoke on the phone yesterday with President Barack Obama, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at the White House.
Obama had “good conversations,” with both leaders, Carney said, providing no further elaboration.
Next week, as sequestration’s start date at the end of the week nears, Obama will visit shipyards in Newport News, Va., “to highlight the fact that there will be real-world impacts to the implementation of the sequester if that takes place, if Republicans choose to allow that to happen,” Carney said.
The spokesman sought to blame Republicans for the current standoff over how and whether to stop the sequestration cuts, which are opposed by the White House and many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
“So there is some responsibility here on the Republican side to do what the president has done, which is to hear what the American people are saying, which is, ‘Please compromise, please be reasonable, please do not adopt positions that represent a my way or the highway approach,'” Carney said.
Obama does not have the power to stop sequestration through executive order, and “it is up to Congress to act,” Carney said.