The 10-day countdown to the sequester has begun.
President Obama, surrounding himself with emergency first responders, called on congressional Republicans Tuesday to avoid $85 billion in "automatic, severe" budget cuts scheduled to take effect March 1 that will gut essential public services.
This so-called sequester "won't help the economy," Obama said. "It won't create jobs."
The "meat cleaver approach" will lead to such things as the layoffs of teachers, cutbacks in the air traffic control system, furloughs of FBI agents and a compromised military, Obama said as he again called for heading off sequestration with a "balanced" debt reduction plan -- and laid the groundwork for blaming the Republicans if the automatic cuts come to pass.
"These cuts are not smart, these cuts are not fair," Obama said. "People will lose their jobs."
A balanced plan means both spending cuts as well as new tax revenue to be derived from closing loopholes and deductions that benefit the wealthy, Obama said.
Congressional Republicans said Obama got tax increases as part of the "fiscal cliff" deal struck on Jan. 1, and this debt cut should be spending cuts only.
"Americans know that if they give President Obama more tax revenue, he isn't going to use it to reduce the deficit; he's going to spend it," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
GOP members are open to revamping the tax code to eliminate unnecessary loopholes, but not to give the government more money to spend, Buck said, He also noted that House Republicans have passed a debt reduction plan -- with spending cuts only -- but the Democratic-run Senate has not followed suit.
At the White House, Obama said House Republicans ask too much of the middle class and not enough of the wealthy. He said the middle class should not bear all the burden of reducing the nation's $16 trillion-plus debt.
There is a good bet the sequester will take effect March 1; Congress is on recess this week and not scheduled to be back in session until Monday.
It is possible Congress could agree to delay the sequester, just as it did in January when it approved the "fiscal cliff" deal. That two-month extension is the one set to expire on March 1.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the government can fund necessary services if it stops wasting money, and he accused Obama of playing politics rather than working with Republicans to avoid the sequester.
"More than three months after the November election, President Obama still prefers campaign events to common sense, bipartisan action," McConnell said.
