Time to Replace the Sequester with a Balanced Approach to
Deficit Reduction
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/27/weekly-address-time-replace-sequester-balanced-approach-deficit-reduction?utm_source=042713&utm_medium=topper&utm_campaign=daily
President Obama says that because Republicans in Congress
allowed a series of harmful, automatic budget cuts—called the sequester—to take
effect, important programs like Head Start are now forced to reduce their
services. After travelers were stuck for hours in airports and on planes this
past week, members of Congress passed a temporary band-aid measure to stop the
cuts that impact airlines — but they must do more to stop cuts to vital
services for the American people. That’s why it’s time for a balanced approach
to deficit reduction that makes smarter cuts and reforms in the tax code while
creating jobs and strengthening the middle class.
Hi, everybody. Our
top priority as a nation must be growing the economy, creating good jobs, and
rebuilding opportunity for the middle class.
But two months ago, Congress allowed a series of automatic
budget cuts to fall across the federal government that would do the
opposite. In Washington-speak, these
cuts were called the “sequester.” It was
a bad idea then. And as the country saw
this week, it’s a bad idea now.
Because of these reckless cuts, there are parents whose kids
just got kicked out of Head Start programs scrambling for a solution. There are seniors who depend on programs like
Meals on Wheels to live independently looking for help. There are military communities – families
that have already sacrificed enough – coping under new strains. All because of these cuts.
This week, the sequester hurt travelers, who were stuck for
hours in airports and on planes, and rightly frustrated by it. And, maybe because they fly home each
weekend, the Members of Congress who insisted these cuts take hold finally
realized that they actually apply to them too.
Republicans claimed victory when the sequester first took
effect, and now they’ve decided it was a bad idea all along. Well, first, they should look at their own
budget. If the cuts they propose were
applied across the board, the FAA would suffer cuts three times deeper.
So Congress passed a temporary fix. A Band-Aid.
But these cuts are scheduled to keep falling across other parts of the
government that provide vital services for the American people. And we can’t just keep putting Band-Aids on
every cut. It’s not a responsible way to
govern. There is only one way to truly
fix the sequester: by replacing it before it causes further damage.
A couple weeks ago, I put forward a budget that replaces the
next several years of these dumb cuts with smarter cuts; reforms our tax code
to close wasteful special interest loopholes; and invests in things like
education, research, and manufacturing that will create new jobs right now.
So I hope Members of Congress will find the same sense of
urgency and bipartisan cooperation to help the families still in the crosshairs
of these cuts. They may not feel the
pain felt by kids kicked off Head Start, or the 750,000 Americans projected to
lose their jobs because of these cuts, or the long-term unemployed who will be
further hurt by them. But that pain is
real.
The American people worked too hard, for too long,
rebuilding from one economic crisis just to see your elected officials keep
causing more. Our economy is
growing. Our deficits are
shrinking. We’re creating jobs on a
consistent basis. But we need to do more
to help middle-class families get ahead, and give more folks a chance to earn
their way into the middle class. And we
can, if we work together. That’s what
you expect. That’s what I’m going to
work every single day to help deliver.
Thank you.