Finger-pointing trumps problem-solving on budget


WASHINGTON (AP) — Just about everyone in official Washington is in agreement that big across-the-board spending cuts at the Pentagon and throughout domestic federal programs on March 1 are a bad idea.

So far, however, the warring tribes in the nation's capital seem more interested in finger-pointing than problem-solving.

Top House Republicans have embarked on a PR campaign reminding the public that the idea for the across-the-board cuts originated in Obama's White House.

Senate Democrats are preparing a bill to substitute about $120 billion in alternative deficit cuts over 10 years and prevent the automatic cuts — in Washington parlance, a sequester — through the end of calendar 2013. Its biggest component is a $47 billion tax increase on the rich; that is sure to prompt a GOP filibuster, probably successful, that will give Democrats political cover — and ammo.

"We again find ourselves in sad and familiar territory," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "Democrats sit on their hands until the last minute. Then they offer some gimmicky bill designed to fail."

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