Obama Calls on Congress to Delay Sequester
February 07, 2013
On Tuesday, President Obama called on Congress to delay sequestration with a “smaller package of tax cuts and spending changes,” reports The New York Times. The automatic, across-the-board reductions to domestic and defense spending were originally scheduled to take effect on January 2, but were postponed until March 1 as part of a year-end tax deal.
The president, who missed a deadline this week to submit his annual budget to Congress, provided no details about the billions of dollars in funding cuts and tax adjustments that he would like to see. He is likely to highlight some of his spending and fiscal priorities in his State of the Union address next Tuesday, though.
Several higher education programs would face 5.1 percent reduction in funding should the planned spending cuts take effect. Although Pell Grants would not be affected, research funds for the National Institutes of Health would be cut by $1.5 billion and the National Science Foundation by $286 million. Funding for the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant and federal work study programs would be reduced by $38 million and $50 million, respectively. Additionally, TRIO and GEAR UP would lose $58 million.
Nearly $1.2 trillion in threatened cuts are scheduled to begin on January 2, 2013 unless lawmakers agree on a long-term plan to reduce the deficit by the end of the year.
President Obama along with members of both parties created the sequestration mechanism in 2011 as part of a temporary settlement to force down the size of the federal budget deficit. Unless lawmakers agree on a long-term plan to reduce the deficit within the next three weeks, federal law will set off the automatic cuts worth about $1.2 trillion over the next decade.
Related Links:
White House Statement on the Sequester
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/05/president-obama-makes-statement-sequester
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/us/politics/obama-congress-budget-cuts.html?_r=0
Michelle Cormier Mott
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