Warning of grave economic consequences if a package of automatic spending cuts takes effect in coming weeks as part of the sequester, President Barack Obama Tuesday urged Congress to pass a short-term package of spending cuts and to close tax loopholes.
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“If they can’t get a bigger package done by the time the sequester is scheduled to go into effect, then I believe they should at least pass a smaller package,” Obama said at the White House. “There is no reason that the jobs of thousands of Americans who work in national security or education or clean energy—not to mention the growth of the entire economy—should be put in jeopardy.”
However, the idea of raising new revenues is already running into resistance among Republicans on Capitol Hill.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon told POLITICO he is “flabbergasted” by the president’s calling for a short-term package of spending cuts and tax reforms.
“Until he addresses the real problem, which is mandatory spending, he’s just whistling in the wind,” McKeon said. “To think that we can just keep cutting our military and solve all of this problem on the back of the military; why doesn’t he just step out and face up to the fact that he could totally eliminate the military, he could totally eliminate the domestic budget, totally, and we’d still be running a half-trillion-dollars-a-year deficit? That’s the real problem and it’s time he face up to it.”
