Blame swapped as budget cuts loom this week

Hope dims while White House, GOP both insist,‘Not my fault’

 “We just need Republicans in Washington to come around,” President Barack Obama (shown here earlier in the month) added. “Because we need their help to finish the job of reducing our deficit in a smart way that doesn’t hurt our economy or our people.”
“We just need Republicans in Washington to come around,” President Barack Obama (shown here earlier in the month) added. “Because we need their help to finish the job of reducing our deficit in a smart way that doesn’t hurt our economy or our people.”

— The White House and Republicans kept up the unrelenting mudslinging Sunday over who’s to blame for roundly condemned budget cuts set to take effect at week’s end, with the administration detailing the potential fallout in each state and governors worrying about the mess.

As leaders condemned the potentially devastating and seemingly inevitable cuts, they also criticized their counterparts for their roles in introducing, implementing and obstructing the budget mechanism, known as sequestration, that is set to slice $85 billion in U.S.spending Friday and affect everything from commercial flights to classrooms.

The GOP’s leading line of criticism hinged on blaming President Barack Obama’s aides for introducing the budget trigger in the first place, while the administration’s allies were determined to illustrate the consequences of the cuts as the product of Republican stubbornness.

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour, aware the political outcome may be predicated on who is to blame, half-jokingly said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union: “Well, if it was a bad idea, it was the president’s idea.”

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said on Fox News Sunday that there was little hope to dodge the cuts “unless the Republicans are willing to compromise and do a balanced approach.”

No so fast, Republicans interjected.

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AP file photo

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour (shown in this file photo), aware the political outcome may be predicated on who is to blame, half-jokingly said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union: “Well, if it was a bad idea, it was the president’s idea.”

“I think the American people are tired of the blame game,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said on CBS’ Face the Nation.

Yet just a moment before, she blamed Obama for putting the country on the brink of spending cuts that were initially designed to be so unacceptable that Congress would strike a grand bargain to avoid them.

Obama nodded to the squabble during his weekly radio and Internet address.

“Unfortunately, it appears that Republicans in Congress have decided that instead of compromising - instead of asking anything of the wealthiest Americans - they would rather let these cuts fall squarely on the middle class,” Obama said Saturday.

“We just need Republicans in Washington to come around,” Obama added. “Because we need their help to finish the job of reducing our deficit in a smart way that doesn’t hurt our economy or our people.”

With Friday’s deadline nearing, few in the nation’s capital were optimistic that a realistic alternative could be found and all sought to cast the political process itself as the culprit.

Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said the GOP is “so focused on not giving the president another win” that the party will cost thousands of jobs. To back up the point, the White House released state-by-state tallies for how many dollars and jobs the budget cuts would mean to each state.

“Our hope is that we’ll be able to come to a solution,” Pfeiffer said. “But there seems to be nothing the Republicans are saying right now on Sunday to suggest that by Friday they’re going to change their position.”

House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel, slapped the blame back. “The White House needs to spend less time explaining to the press how bad the sequester will be and more time actually working to stop it,” the Republican said.

The threat of the federal spending cutbacks, which would total $1.2 trillion over nine years, hasn’t fazed financial markets so far. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index has gained 6.3 percent this year as U.S. lawmakers agreed on a compromise on taxes in January and amid better-than-estimated corporate earnings.

Still, if the impasse drags on, the Congressional Budget Office has warned reduced federal spending may lower the gross domestic product by 0.6 percent and cost 750,000 jobs by the end of 2013.

The cuts would slash from domestic and defense spending alike, leading to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of government workers and contractors.

Federal money for state administered programs will be reduced by $5.8 billion this year, according to estimates by Federal Funds Information for States, a Washington-based group created by the governors association and National Conference of State Legislatures. Medicaid, the state-federal health-care program for the poor, and state road funding won’t be affected because they are specifically exempt.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the cuts would harm the readiness of U.S. fighting forces. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said travelers could see delayed flights. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, appearing on CBS, called the cuts “dumb” and said 70,000 fewer children from low-income families would have access to Head Start programs.

In Virginia, 90,000 Defense Department civilian employees could be furloughed, including nurses at Army hospitals, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said on CBS. He also said ship repair contractors could lay off 300 of their 450 employees.

“There is no reason that this has to happen. We just need to find a balanced approach,” Kaine said.

White House officials also pointed to Ohio as another state that would be hit hard: $25.1 million in education spending and another $22 million for students with disabilities. Some 2,500 children from low-income families would also be removed from Head Start programs.

Officials also said their analysis showed Kentucky would lose $93,000 in federal funding for a domestic abuse program, meaning 400 fewer victims being served in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state. Georgia, meanwhile, would face a $286,000 budget cut to its children’s health programs, meaning almost 4,200 fewer children would receive vaccinations against measles and whooping cough.

White House officials said Nevada would face military furloughs totaling $12.1 million in reduced pay, a $424,000 cut to pay for meals for seniors and an almost $2 million reduction for clean air and water programs.

The White House compiled the state-by-state numbers from federal agencies and its own budget office. The numbers are based only on the $85 billion in cuts for this fiscal year, from March to September, that are set to take effect Friday.

As to whether states could move money around to cover shortfalls, the White House said that depends on state budget structures and the specific programs. The White House did not have a list of which states or programs might have flexibility.

Some governors said the impasse was just the latest crisis in Washington that is keeping businesses from hiring and undermining the ability of state leaders to develop their own spending plans.

“The uncertainty of sequestration is really harming our states and our national economy,” Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, said at a news conference kicking off the annual meeting of the National Governors Association this weekend. “We’re talking about real lives. We’re talking about families. We’re talking about their pocketbooks.”

The spending reductions may lead to a loss of 20,000 jobs in Oklahoma, where businesses are already hesitant to invest because of questions about the federal budget, Fallin said.

“It’s senseless and it doesn’t need to happen,” Gov. Martin O’Malley, D-Md., said at the Washington meeting.

“And it’s a damn shame, because we’ve actually had the fastest rate of jobs recovery of any state in our region. And this really threatens to hurt a lot of families in our state and kind of flat line our job growth for the next several months,”O’Malley said.

Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy said on CNN that it is past time for both sides to sit down to help dodge cuts that will hurt all states’ budgets.

“Come to the table, everyone. Everybody. Let’s work this thing out. Let’s be adults,” said Malloy, a Democrat.

Obama, who hosted the governors at a White House dinner Sunday, did not directly mention the budget cuts. He’s expected to discuss the budget stalemate with governors during a meeting today at the White House.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the defense cuts “unconscionable” and urged Obama to call lawmakers to the White House or the presidential retreat of Camp David for a last-minute budget meeting.

“I won’t put all the blame all on the president of the United States. But the president leads. The president should be calling us over somewhere - Camp David, the White House, somewhere - and us sitting down and trying to avert these cuts,” McCain said on CNN.

LaHood, who served as a Republican representing Illinois in the U.S. House, urged his colleagues to watch Steven Spielberg’s film about President Abraham Lincoln’s political skills.

“Everybody around here ought to go take a look at the Lincoln movie, where they did very hard things by working together, talking together and compromising,” said LaHood.“That’s what’s needed here.” Information for this article was contributed by Philip Elliott and Steve Peoples of The Associated Press and by Hans Nichols, Kevin Costelloe, William Selway, Michael C. Bender, Greg Giroux, Kasia Klimasinska, Miles Weiss and Michelle Kaske of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/25/2013

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