With sequester in place, what's next?
The government is not going to shut down on March 27, lawmakers from both parties are assuring their constituents, three days after an axe dropped indiscriminately across the federal budget leaving millions of jobs and government-funded projects in flux.
It's a mad scramble to save face following yet another failure by Congress in recent years to avert a budget crisis, but it comes with a stipulation: To agree on a drama-free measure to fund the government through the remainder of the fiscal year, legislators are unlikely to include in the deal a replacement package for sequestration, despite pressure from all sides to do so.
Democrats, in particular, have cited the continuing resolution (CR) of 2013 - a stopgap funding measure set to expire March 27 - as an opportunely timed budget evaluation, into which could be rolled a more carefully targeted deficit reduction plan. On Friday, President Obama told reporters he would not stand in the way of a bill that complies with the discretionary spending level of $1.043 trillion set in 2011, but indicated the politics of sequestration are too polarizing for inclusion in the CR.
Sequester cuts, he said, "are additional cuts on top of that. And by law, until Congress takes the sequester away, we'd have to abide by those additional cuts. But there's no reason why we should have another crisis by shutting the government down in addition to these arbitrary spending cuts."
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in a Friday interview that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he was "hopeful" following a "pleasant" meeting with President Obama. "The president... agreed that we should not have any talk of a government shutdown," he said. But the speaker, who argued that no one had been more devoted than he to avoiding sequestration, admitted the course of the automatic cuts remains unclear.
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"I don't know whether its going to hurt the economy or not - I don't think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved," Boehner said of the sequester, crafted during the 2011 debt ceiling battle to be so reckless that the bitterly divided Congress would be forced to work together to come up with a substitute.
Several days into actual enactment of the cuts, the New York Times's David Sanger during a roundtable discussion on Sunday's "Face the Nation" said the fact that lawmakers have reached this point demonstrates "a fairly serious miscalculation" by the president: "He believed that these cuts in defense would be so outrageous to the Republican Party that they would never let it happen," he said.
"It turns out that the part of the party that wanted to see cuts happen, to shrink government, won out over the traditional side that would defend the Defense Department," Sanger continued.
Gene Sperling, head of the president's National Economic Council, said striking an alternate deal with Republicans remains a priority for Mr. Obama and his administration.
"We will still be committed to trying to find Republicans and Democrats that will work on a bipartisan compromise to get rid of the sequester," he said.
If not replaced, $85 billion worth of the total $1.2 trillion in spending cuts - 50 percent of which are focused on defense - are mandated to play out by September 30. Largely at issue is a disagreement between Mr. Obama and House Republicans over whether to partner spending cuts with additional revenue through tax hikes.
GOP senators like Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have argued there is certainly revenue to be found through tax and entitlement reform, but said they won't budge on increasing tax rates after January's deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" upped taxes on households making more than $450,000 a year.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on CNN's "State of the Union" that Republicans are "willing to talk to [the president] about reconfiguring the same amount of spending reduction over the next six months," but played down the effects of the cuts. Arriving at the brink of sequestration, though, gives both sides "a little bit of breathing room," according to CBS News political director John Dickerson.
"The president can say to Republicans, 'Look: we've cut a lot,' and Republicans can say, 'We didn't give in on this latest request for revenues," Dickerson said Sunday on "Face the Nation." At center stage in the debate now, he added, are entitlements, which Republicans have long argued cuts to, and which President Obama for the first time this weekend suggested as a possible area to be trimmed.
During calls with both party's leaders on Saturday, Sperling said on "State of the Union," Mr. Obama tendered reform to Social Security and Medicare as one suggestion for how to navigate out of sequestration.
"He's reaching out to Democrats who understand we have to make serious progress on long-term entitlement reform, and Republicans who realize that if we had that type of entitlement reform, they'd be willing to have tax reform that raises revenues to lower the deficit," Sperling said.
Sens. Graham and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., agreed on "Face the Nation" that some give and take from both parties in Washington will be critical to move the budget legislation piling up on the desks of Congress.
"I hope what I'm seeing is that we're trying to establish a new standard in the Senate - a bipartisan dialogue that might lead to a solution," Durbin said of his "gang of eight" Republican and Democratic colleagues working with him to author immigration reform legislation. "I think people who have given up on Congress would be encouraged to know there's a real positive dialogue, bipartisan dialogue, and perhaps - just perhaps - we can set the stage for an even more positive dialogue when it comes to the budget."
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OK, regulations are up and new job starts are down. Taxes are up and new job starts are down. And U.S. loses in competition for the location of new manufacturing facilities also as a result of more attractive foreign competition less burdened by regulations and taxes than the U.S.
Assuming government won't come off their high horse on regulations and taxes, it follows that the jobs picture won't improve.
So, participation will stay depressed unless all Americans agree to share equally the job supply. This could happen as a result of going to, say, a 30 hour work week, and spreading the jobs that we do have around amongst everybody.
When everybody participates then everybody pays taxes plus everybody is not on welfare.
Are you proposing we follow suit???
Cutting $85 Billion of borrowing over 10 months is a start but is only a fraction (13%) of the President's proposed $1.4 Trillion deficit borrowing for the year 2013.
It took a sequester to fix 13% of borrowing.
speaking of "slave labor"....all you lefties are always complaining about WalMart being such an "evil" company--- I believe obo just made a new hire?
Good ideas can come from either party (or even outside both parties) but neither party will ever admit the other ever had one.
It is time for the American people to vote based on results rather than vague minor differences between two parties battling to show how they differ from each other and are right.
The will of the "people" for add'l tax increases? Not so much! The will of the "moochers" who pay little or no taxes?? Perhaps!
If you think we're doomed now....wait until all of the affects from obamacare start to kick in-
What of these truths (I am ignoring your stupid comments) would Bush have not done, if he had another five years? Nothing.
Obama is no better.
The Democratic National Committee has no intention of repaying the country's largest electrical power company for the unprecedented $10 million line of credit it guaranteed to help a local host committee fund last September's Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.
According to an article on the Washington Times web site, an official for Duke Energy said the company would claim the money as a business expense for tax purposes, meaning shareholders will foot $6 million of the cost.
The amount of the loan and the secrecy surrounding it has raised red flags for government watchdog groups.
They claim the arrangement smacks of serious conflict-of-interest issues for President Obama and disputes his claim to be committed to disclosure and transparency.
Since Duke Energy guaranteed the loan, the company had previously refused to issue any information regarding payment terms or when it would come due.
At the end of January, a Duke Energy spokesman referred all questions about the loan to Dan Murrey, a surgeon in Charlotte who acted as chairman of the convention host committee, which is an independent group affiliated with the DNC.
Murrey told The Washington Times only that the line of credit was with two banks — Bank of America and the Charlotte-based Mechanics & Farmers Bank.
"We are still finishing up some collections and disbursements related to the convention, and the account is still open," Murrey said.
In 2011, The White House originally banned corporate donations to the convention, but with Democratic supporters intent on donating to what would become the most expensive presidential campaign in history, the host committee organizing the convention found itself strapped for cash and reversed the decision.
Jim Rogers, Duke Energy CEO, has said supporting the convention was a good way to get Charlotte unprecedented exposure on an international scale and was also beneficial for his company.
"At the end of the day, we'll do our best to get our money back," he told the Charlotte Observer in a January interview.
"But if we don't, it's just a contribution we're making I think for the greater good of our community."
Duke Energy's involvement went beyond the guaranteeing of a loan.
It donated $4.1 million to a separate fund formed to receive corporate money for parties outside the convention hall and $1.5 million in in-kind contributions to the host committee for other expenses, such as office space and furniture.
Watchdog groups say the loan shows that Obama put political expediency above his pledge to run "the most transparent government in history,"
"This is just a blank check for the party, and it undermines the whole [Obama] message of cracking down on special interests' influence in Washington," said Tyson Slocum, an energy specialist for Public Citizen, a left-leaning consumer rights advocacy group.
"It's clear the administration is hypocritical."
Many watchdogs are seriously concerned about Democrats accepting large donations from Duke Energy, the third-largest coal burning utility in the country.
They fear the favoritism and unfair influence with the Obama administration that could result.
Despite Obama's crackdown on emissions from coal-fired plants, Duke is one of at least a dozen firms exempted by the administration so it can pursue energy projects paid for by stimulus dollars, according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity.
In 2009, Duke received $200 million in federal stimulus money for "smart-grid" improvements and at least two of the company's power plants — one in North Carolina and another in Indiana — got hundreds of millions of dollars in "advanced coal" tax credits, as well as federal and local incentives, from the Department of Energy