March 1, 2013
Obama Signals He’d Let Cuts Stand to Avoid U.S. Shutdown
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
WASHINGTON — President Obama and Congressional leaders emerged from a White House meeting on Friday without resolution to the budget impasse, meaning that the across-the-board spending cuts that take effect Friday could remain in place for weeks if not months.
Speaking to reporters after the hourlong meeting, Mr. Obama called the cuts “just dumb,” and criticized Republicans for their refusal to negotiate a package that includes some new revenue to balance those cuts.
“The only thing we’ve seen from Republicans so far in terms of proposals is to replace this set of arbitrary cuts with even worse arbitrary cuts,” said Mr. Obama.
The president also signaled that he wants to avoid a clash with Congress that could shut down the government at the end of March even if it means allowing across-the-board cuts to remain in place for months, saying that the cuts will not amount to an “apocalypse.” “The pain, though, will be real,” he said.
Mr. Obama’s comments came as Republican leaders made clear they had no intention of budging on the president’s demands that the across-the-board cuts be replaced with what he calls a “balanced” package of spending cuts and tax increases.
Speaker John A. Boehner emerged from the meeting after about an hour to indicate that little progress had been made toward bridging the differences between Republicans and the president.
“Let’s make it clear, the president got his tax hike on January 1st,” Mr. Boehner told reporters after the meeting ended. “The discussion about revenue, in my view, is over. It’s about taking on the spending problem here in Washington.”
Sounding relaxed as he took questions from reporters, the president said he disagreed with that position and hoped that Republicans in Congress “come to their senses” in the weeks or even months ahead. But he seemed resigned that the deep cuts would remain in effect.
He said he hoped Republicans would change their minds “after some reflection,” but he admitted: “It may take a couple of weeks. It may take a couple of months.”
And the president appeared ready to move beyond the repeated fiscal debates in the last several years to the broader agenda he spelled out in the State of the Union speech, including gun control measures, pre-school, a higher minimum wage, an immigration overhaul and changes to the nation’s system of voting.
Mr. Obama summoned the four top Congressional leaders to the Oval Office in an effort to discuss how to move forward in the wake of the failure to avoid the cuts, known as sequestration, White House aides said. They said Mr. Obama would continue to push for a long-term budget deal that includes spending cuts and tax increases.
“We have an opportunity here still on the table for Congress to take up a balanced deal that would complete the job, and then some, of achieving more than $4 trillion of deficit reduction over 10 years, in a balanced way that helps our economy grow, that helps it create jobs,” Jay Carney, the president’s press secretary, said Thursday.
But ahead of Friday’s meeting, Republican leaders made clear that they had no intention of agreeing to such a deal, and said the president was prolonging the automatic cuts by insisting on tax increases. In a statement issued Friday morning, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, showed little evidence of wavering.
“I’m happy to discuss other ideas to keep our commitment to reducing Washington spending at today’s meeting,” Mr. McConnell said. “But there will be no last-minute, back-room deal and absolutely no agreement to increase taxes.”
The meeting between the president and the four lawmakers — Mr. Boehner; Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader; Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader; and Mr. McConnell — is the first time since the end of last year that the group has gathered for a direct discussion about their differences.
But the fact that the meeting was scheduled for the day the automatic cuts go into effect — and after members of Congress have left town for the weekend — was a clear signal that no one expects to make serious progress toward an agreement to undo the cuts.
Republicans once denounced the across-the-board cuts as bad policy, especially for the military. But many in the party have now embraced them as a way to trim the size of government over the objections of the president and Democrats in Congress.
Mr. Obama’s top advisers believe the impact of the cuts will be severe enough over the next several weeks that Republican lawmakers will be forced back to the bargaining table.
