Obama: Gov't shutdown would imperil recovery

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said the economic recovery will stall if Congress can't agree on spending cuts and avoid a government shutdown.

Meanwhile, lawmakers appear to be moving closer to a compromise that would prevent a government shutdown, at least for now.

The current budget expires next Friday. That means lawmakers must approve a new spending plan before the March 4 deadline to keep much of the government from running out of money and closing. The Republican-run House and Democratic-controlled Senate are bickering over how much to cut.

"For the sake of our people and our economy, we cannot allow gridlock to prevail," Mr. Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. "I urge and expect them to find common ground so we can accelerate, not impede, economic growth."

House Republicans on Friday detailed an interim proposal to cut $4 billion in federal spending as part of legislation to keep the government operating for two weeks past a March 4 deadline. They urged Senate Democrats to accept their approach and avoid a government shutdown.

The Republican plan, to be debated by the House on Tuesday, includes $1.24 billion in savings, mainly from programs that Mr. Obama had proposed cutting in the fiscal 2012 budget, and the termination of some $2.7 billion in earmarks, or lawmakers' special projects, that are part of this year's budget.

House Speaker John Boehner insists that a short-term bill without spending cuts is unacceptable to Republicans.

Democrats say they're encouraged by efforts to narrow the gap on possible spending cuts, but are pushing back against Republican efforts to force their position on Congress.

Democrats initially called for a short-term extension at current spending levels so the parties can negotiate over how deeply to cut expenditures and begin chipping away at the deficit and the trillions of dollars in accumulated debt.

But Democrats now are discussing cuts that head in the same direction as the Republicans by focusing on earmarks and accelerating the elimination or trimming of programs recommended in Mr. Obama's 2012 budget. But the Democrats would apply the cuts to the remaining seven months of the current budget year.

With only a week remaining before federal spending authority runs out, both parties have sought to blame the other in advance if a shutdown does occur. Democrats who control the Senate have rejected as draconian a bill passed by the House last week that would fund the government through the end of the budget year on Sept. 30 while carrying out $61 billion in spending cuts. Mr. Obama has threatened to veto that bill in the unlikely event it passed the Senate.

If Senate Democrats walk away from the short-term Republican offer to cut $4 billion in federal spending, said Republican Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois, "they are then actively engineering a government shutdown."

Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, saw it differently. "They feared a government shutdown and so they are adopting some of our suggestions on what to cut," he said after Republicans outlined their plans.

In the weekly Republican message, freshman Sen. Rob Portman criticized Obama's 2012 budget plan for proposing no changes to entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, which are huge contributors to overall government spending.

A former White House budget director, Portman urged Congress to make the "tough choices all Americans know are necessary to get our fiscal house in order and strengthen our economy."

"Our goal as Republicans is to make sensible reductions in this spending and create a better environment for job growth, not to shut down the government," he said. "Getting our debt and deficits under control is the first step we can take, and the single most important step Washington can take, to get our economy moving and create the jobs we so badly need."