White House: States will feel impact from imminent budget cuts

Continuing their full-court press offensive just days before $85 billion in automatic cuts to federal spending kicks in, senior administration officials are highlighting the impact of the cuts on individual states.

The officials' dire warnings come on the heels of more Republican criticism of President Obama and his administration's handling of the so-called sequester; the officials took the opportunity to again slam Republicans for refusing to compromise by including new revenue in a sequester replacement.

• Who's responsible for the sequester?
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"It's important to understand," White House political director Dan Pfeiffer said, that the sequester is "going into effect because Republicans are choosing for it to go into effect."

"Republicans are making a policy choice that these cuts are better for the economy than eliminating loopholes that benefit the wealthy," he explained. "Hopefully they'll change their mind in the next seven days."

House Speaker John Boehner's spokesman Michael Steel responded in an email saying, "Republicans in the House have voted - twice - to replace President Obama's sequester with smarter spending cuts. The White House needs to spend less time explaining to the press how bad the sequester will be and more time actually working to stop it."

If the sequester does land as scheduled, warned Jason Furman, principal deputy director of the National Economic Council, the result will be "macroeconomic consequences" costing hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country, as well as "serious programmatic consequences for all 50 states."

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The sequester: A view from the states

The administration released a report detailing the effect of the cuts on each individual state this afternoon. Citing a few examples, Furman explained that 350 teachers and teacher aide jobs in Ohio alone would be at risk. He also mentioned the maintenance of 11 Navy ships in Virginia that would be cancelled, along with the 4,180 children in Georgia who will not get vaccines.

Pfeiffer warned of the "hundreds of thousands of Americans who are working today who will lose their jobs as a consequence of this Republican decision."

Fortunately, he added, "There's a much better course economically."

"We're not asking for a my way or the highway approach," he said, calling on Republicans to simply embrace "a proposal Speaker Boehner championed two months ago."

Play Video

The sequester: A view from the states

That proposal, a balanced mix of targeted cuts and tax loophole eliminations, compared to simply allowing the sequester proceed, would produce "more deficit reduction," enact "more meaningful long term entitlement reform" and help create a "more competitive and efficient tax code," Pfeiffer said.

"That's not something that can be done in the next five days," he admitted, which is why the White House has pushed a short-term agreement to "buy more time."

"The Senate has a bill on the floor next week that does that," he added. "Our hope is Republicans don't abuse legislative tactics like the filibuster to block that solution."

Pfeiffer was asked why he believes Republicans would acquiesce to higher revenues in this latest fiscal brawl, especially given their reluctance to do so during the fight that produced the sequester in the first place. He explained, "The American people sent a very strong message in the last election that they believed strongly in deficit reduction."

And he also said that voting for new revenue was a line the GOP had already crossed during the "fiscal cliff" fight that allowed taxes to hike on individual incomes in excess of $400,000 at the start of 2013.

At that time, "Republicans broke their 20-year opposition to revenues being part of any deficit reduction," Pfeiffer noted. "The days of [anti-tax advocate] Grover Norquist's stranglehold on the Republican party should be over," but "Republicans seem to want to hearken back to those days right now.

"They are so focused on not giving the president another win," he said, "that they are undermining their own long-term policy goals."

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[thethomkat]

its about time for some serious cuts. My question. Why are we borrowing money from China to give to Egypt- India- Pakistan eg.... and cutting funds to our own people. Borrowing billions just to give to other countries? Why do we Employ hundred of thousands of foregin workers at our tax payers expense to man our military bases over seas, Do we really need 600 plus bases. Its not that there's not enough taxes being paid . Our Government is no longer working for the people no longer controlled by the people. It's owned - Controlled by THE UN. Please do not pass any budget let the badly needed cuts begin.

[peter_out]

I'm not afraid of the sequester, are you? It only represents a 2% change and according to some reports we have a 100% problem. If we can't try at least to fix 2% of the problem then what?

[Donnie_G]

Asking who is responsible for the sequester simply shows just how dysfunctional our federal government has become. There's plenty of blame to go around, and no one side can lay claim to having a moral or ethical advantage over the other. The bottom line is that both sides in this dispute agreed to the terms of the sequester specifically because it would be equally as painful for them both, and that's a good thing. No pain no gain! If it takes swallowing this bitter pill to undo the current state of gridlock in government and bring both sides back to a middle ground of compromise, then so be it. Let the sequester happen.

[sandiegopete]

The so called sequester will be a boon to United States business. Food manufacturers will not have to worry about any pesky inspectors and can cut back on hygiene costs. There will be cuts in labor law enforcement so employers will save money on things like overtime. Airlines will be able to cut operating expenses by discontinuing some routes while increasing fares for popular routes. Financial institutions will not have to worry about federal regulators. There will be fewer tax audits.

Yes, this sequester thing is great for business.

[ucjb]

When your country's economy depends on stealing money from citizens and giving it to corporations you might live in a banana republic.

[whaas2]

It is the President's plan for the federal government to start running surpluses by 2015. He has already got most of the raise in taxes on the "rich" that he asked for. To achieve his goal the administration is going to have to cut spending more than the sequester by roughly a factor of 8. So the current sequestor, which the President himself signed into law, represeins only a small fraction of the cuts that the administration must make to achieve the President's goal.

[zmonkee]

RolloOfTheNormans replies: linkicon reporticon emailicon zmonkee replies:

"and that is working soooooo good for Europe!!"

Actually it does, workers in Europe don't have near the quality of life issues exploited American workers face

Rollo-- Europe is also BROKE-

[realtimecoffee]

knsn_for_cmn_sense replies: linkicon reporticon emailicon RTC...

Wont happen. The GOP(Presicent and both houses) got off scott free for their complete utter and total mismanagement during 00-06.

Were able to completely blame it on Clinton before them and the Dem congress after them. And then completely on Obama.
---
Knsn the GOP is blamed every day for everything (and probably rightly so in most cases) But you are right, the Reps blame the Dems and the Dems blame the Reps. Just think how many times the name Bush comes up and in what context. The big picture is Dems in control or Reps in control, government fails and they blame each other The high school sports types go along with it happily, And nothing changes.
What is happening at this moment is the Executive branch is shaping the 2% cuts to do maximum damage to the very constituency they clain to support, in order to force the Reps hand. It has worked in the past, so we shall see. And remember at the end of March is the next crisis. Does ANYONE really see anything good coming from all this?

[bobw101]

GOP-R--Con-Men replies:

Use google or call your senator or congressman.

----------

Just as I thought, seems you like to mishandle the truth. There are no special subsidies for outsourcing jobs.

[zmonkee]

the left keeps blaming republicans for taking advantage of tax loop holes? Big Oil, Pharmaceutical companies, etc...and how the MEAN Business owners take advantage of the "little guy"--- well...I think you missed this one:


What would you do to a couple of rich guys who brought workers in from Mexico illegally to work in their state of the art manufacturing plant and paid them only $2.66 an hour? What if they brought them in on a travel visa, not a work visa, making it illegal for them to work in this country? What if they paid them by direct deposit into a bank in Mexico, as opposed to an American bank subject to American regulators?

Eric Kurhi and Brandon Bailey reported in the San Jose Mercury News that Mexicans were bussed 1,300 miles into northern California to do welding and other jobs for Bloom Energy, a "green" company that has received a lot of praise for its fuel-cell technology. I presume it was for jobs U.S. citizens within a 1,300-mile radius of heavily liberal, wealthy Democratic Sunnyvale, California, refuse to do.

The men worked 51 hours a week and were not paid overtime. They were provided fabulous motel accommodations and 50 dollars cash each day for meals. Cash is, quite coincidentally, difficult to trace. If any of this appears to be accidental and certainly nothing like high-end human smuggling, consider the method of payment. The workers were not paid in U.S. dollars or in U.S. checks that might be easily traced. They were paid their handsome $2.66 per hour in pesos via transfers to a bank in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Bloom insists the illegal visas, the low pay, the bus, the bank transfers in Chihuahua, the cash for meals - every bit of it is just some terrible coincidence that could not possibly be planned, otherwise they'd be guilty of illegal immigrant smuggling. We certainly cannot believe that the wonderful people who happen to deposit millions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to offset the real cost of the energy they sell would do anything untoward. After all, Bloom Energy is "green," well-connected to the Democratic Party and its crony capitalist connections stretch from Sunnyvale, California, to Delaware.

Delaware, Governor Jack Markell was so impressed with Bloom Energy's "green" marketing that he compelled his fellow Democrats, who control every branch of state government, to declare Bloom's natural gas fuel a "renewable energy." Considering natural gas has a tendency to dissipate, the state legislature in your state could use the logic of Delaware Democrats and declare oil to be renewable, too.

Please pay no attention to the campaign contributions made to Markell from one of Bloom's biggest investment firms. Please also disregard the Governor's payments to a PR firm and activities to create his "national brand."

While Fisker is often called the "Green Car Solyndra," the Bloom funding scheme could be the "Bloomdoggle." Funding their big boxes of chemical reaction energy production wouldn't be problem if traditional investment vehicles, tax breaks and infrastructure incentives were involved.

Instead, the state government in Delaware has simply commanded a single power company, Delmarva Power, to bill its customers a little extra and pass that money straight through to Bloom. No one else in the state pays. Only Delmarva Power customers, who have now become unwitting venture capitalists without dividends or stock to cash, whose monthly investment is not even shown on their monthly bill.

The Bloomdoggle is not as ham-handed as the "Sunnyvale Smuggle," and certainly not as obviously prosecutable, but it does make one wonder, "How do they get away with it?"

[zmonkee]

read the article again--