Report warns of ‘destructive’ budget cuts

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

A White House report issued Friday warns that $109 billion in across-the-board spending cuts at the start of the new year would be “deeply destructive” to the military and core government responsibilities such as patrolling U.S. borders and air-traffic control.

The report says the automatic cuts, mandated by the failure of last year’s congressional deficit “supercommittee” to strike a budget deal, would require an across-the-board cut of 9 percent to most Pentagon programs and 8 percent in many domestic programs. The process of automatic cuts is called sequestration, and the administration has no flexibility in how to distribute the cuts, other than to exempt military personnel and war-fighting accounts.

“Sequestration would be deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments and core government functions,” the report says.

The cuts, combined with the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts at the end of the year, have been dubbed the “fiscal cliff.” Economists warn that the one-two punch could drive the economy back into recession.

The across-the-board cuts were devised as part of last summer’s budget and debt deal between President Barack Obama and Capitol Hill Republicans. They were intended to drive the supercommittee — evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans — to strike a compromise. But the panel deadlocked, and the combatants have spent more time since then blaming each other for the looming cuts than seeking ways to avoid them.

Republicans are trying to cast any blame for a possible sequester squarely on Obama, saying it was the White House’s idea during last summer’s budget negotiations — an argument that fails to acknowledge that GOP leaders backed the idea at the time and all voted for it.