President Barack Obama has warned Congress that $1.2tn in automatic spending cuts at the Pentagon and other government agencies, due to come in effect on March 1, represented a “meat cleaver” approach to deficit reduction that would “jeopardise our military readiness” and “eviscerate job-creating investments”.
“These cuts are not smart. They are not fair. They will hurt our economy,” Mr Obama said yesterday from a podium at the White House, flanked by firefighters and police officers who might be laid off.
Mr Obama’s message came as Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, co-chairs of the president’s 2010 bipartisan debt commission, presented a revised plan to avert the automatic cuts with $2.4tn in additional deficit reduction over 10 years.
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