WASHINGTON — President Obama, back from his three-day golf getaway, on Monday morning will make use of his bully pulpit, while Congress remains out all week, to turn up the pressure for a bipartisan agreement to avoid indiscriminate across-the-board budget cuts that will otherwise hit March 1.
In the morning, Mr. Obama will speak at a White House auditorium, where he will be joined by first responders to illustrate the sorts of Americans whose jobs are threatened if the cuts take effect. According to the White House, the Federal Emergency Management Agency would not be able to provide grants to states and local governments that currently support hiring for firefighters and other local emergency personnel.
Some Republicans in Congress have proposed alternative savings that would spare any cuts in military spending but not in domestic accounts. Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats are calling for a mix of spending cuts and additional tax revenues by closing some tax breaks for wealthy investors and corporations.
A White House statement announcing the president’s scheduled remarks summarized the political frame that Mr. Obama has devised to try to corner the Republicans into compromising: “The president will challenge Republicans to make a very simple choice: do they protect investments in education, health care and national defense or do they continue to prioritize and protect tax loopholes that benefit the very few at the expense of middle- and working-class Americans?”
The president’s latest deficit reduction push comes as the heads of his 2010 deficit reduction commission — former Senator Alan K. Simpson and Erskine B. Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton — unveil a new plan that would reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion through a series of spending cuts and an overhaul of the tax system.
When Congress returns from a winter recess next week, just days remain before the deadline for the so-called sequester of spending cuts, a deadline that already was moved once — at the start of the year — to allow more time for the two parties to negotiate.
Obama to Turn Up Pressure for Deal on Budget Cuts
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Obama to Turn Up Pressure for Deal on Budget Cuts
