Toomey: keep budget cuts, but give Obama flexibility
Breaking local news and comprehensive coverage of the Philadelphia region, nation and world from Philly.com, Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News.
Toomey: keep budget cuts, but give Obama flexibility
WASHINGTON -- As $85 billion in federal budget cuts near, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey is working on a plan to give President Obama more power to decide how to administer the reductions.
The idea is to replace the blunt, across-the-board reductions that will hit programs effective and ineffective alike with more targeted cutbacks chosen by the White House “so they can make the least disruptive cuts possible,” Toomey said Tuesday.
But Toomey, a Republican fiscal hawk, said the size of the cuts should not change. The reductions, he said, are needed to help trim the federal deficit.
“It’s very important that they be preserved and not be delayed. The willingness to go ahead with them will send a constructive message to our citizens, to the markets,” Toomey said. “I think they’re badly designed, I think too much of them lands on the defense budgets, the nature of the across-the-board cuts preclude a more thoughtful way of prioritizing … but having said that, given the disastrous fiscal situation that we’re in, we’ve got to make these cuts.”
Toomey’s idea is one of several senate Republican alternatives being discussed to try to ease the effects of the cuts called for under the sequester. It could come up for a vote this week, along with a Democratic alternative, but first Toomey will have to win over his GOP colleagues, some of whom are pushing for other fixes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said each party will get one alternative bill, and he and President Obama both oppose Toomey’s plan.
Obama, in an afternoon speech in Newport News, Va., rejected the idea that flexibility would undo the damage of the cuts, which would begin to take effect Friday.
When it comes to a cut “which represents over a 10 percent cut in the defense budget in seven months, there’s no smart way to do that,” Obama said. “You don’t want to have to choose between, let’s see, do I close funding for the disabled kid, or the poor kid? Do I close this Navy shipyard or some other one? When you’re doing things in a way that’s not smart you can’t gloss over the pain and the impact it’s going to have on the economy.”
Toomey is crafting his plan along with Sens. Tom Coburn and James Inhofe, both Oklahoma Republicans, but some Republicans worry about ceding too much power to Obama to decide on how the cuts play out.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, for example, said, “I believe the responsibility I held on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the hundreds of hours of hearings and deliberation and study ... should be adhered to.”
Democrats are wary that if Obama has to take responsibility for all the reductions, Republicans will attempt to absolve themselves of any blame for the fall-out, which Democrats warn will still be significant, given the size of the reductions and that there are just seven months left in the federal fiscal year.
“These guys bash the president nonstop ... then they are going to take the power of the purse and say, ‘We are so unable to do our job we are going to give you complete flexibility to do it’? There’s an irony there,” Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine told the New York Times.
Senate Democrats and Republicans are each expected to put forward an alternative to the sequester that could be voted on Thursday -- but Reid said Republicans will have to settle on one approach. So far the GOP does not appear to have done so. The Senate Democratic plan includes a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, including implementing the so-called “Buffett Rule” requiring that people making more than $5 million pay a minimum effective tax rate.
Obama has called for replacing the cuts with more targeted reductions and new tax revenue that would come from closing tax loopholes. Republicans have opposed any new tax increases and instead want the cuts shifted away from defense programs.
Both parties agreed to the across-the-board cuts in 2011 as a potential penalty if they couldn’t work out a deficit reduction plan. When no plan came together the cuts were set to hit Jan. 1, but they were delayed until March 1.
Now the cuts appear likely to begin taking effect, though it’s not clear what the immediate impact will be. Some programs may feel an immediate pinch, but other reductions may take weeks to make an impact. Threatened furloughs of federal workers, for example, are not expected to happen until some time in April, leaving the two parties time to negotiate solutions, even if they miss Friday’s deadline.
Too Little Too Late, the clueless and arrogant GOP is about to become extinct. Senator Toomey might as well convert now.— axxell- Why is the GOP "clueless and arrogant"???
The sequester and automatic cuts were Obama's idea in the first place and all the GOP is doing is holding Govt responsible for the balance in spending and cuts that is needed.
the $85B in cuts represents less than 2% of the national budget so the impacts wont be that bad unless Obama screws it up.— Professor1982 - Wait... aren't you the clueless and arrogant individual who was posting in another comments section that advocating that only landowners should be able to vote?
Keep dissing the electorate.... please.— carl and sons - Well according to John Kerry, "Americans have a right to be stupid"...lol! — Professor1982
- Well you are not shy in exercising that particular right.
...lol!— carl and sons - Clueless, arrogant and still whistling in the dark as though Nov 6 2012 never happened:
A recent poll by USA Today and Pew Research Center found 49 percent of those surveyed would blame congressional Republicans if a deal isn’t struck, compared to 31 percent who would blame Obama and 11 percent who would think it’s both of their faults.
November 2014 can't come soon enough for me! - Just one more example of Democrats not keeping their word and whining when its time to pay the piper, lol. — Professor1982
i applaud senator toomey for his bipartisan plan to give obama the flexibility to control which programs are cut. the executive branch is better able to make these decisions than congress. this way, the deficit can be reduced while limiting the cuts to our most important programs
surprisingly, senator casey is mum on the matter...— hannibal barca- Toomey is the only PA Senator worth anything.
Obama proposed the Sequester cuts and the GOP has been willing to work with him on this. Now he needs to step up and decide where the cuts are going to occur.
Casey is a do nothing media wh*re.— Professor1982 - I'm still waiting for all of the GOP bashers to explain why the democratic controlled Senate, and the President, have not put forth a budget proposal in FOUR years. The House put one up, but good ol' Harry never allowed it to be discussed. GOP gets bashed for implementing Obama's idea of sequester. It just proves that the 51% of Americans that voted for Obama exercised their right to be stupid, just like John "living off a dead republican's money" Kerry said they had a right to.— jcc1960
- yeah!!!... and, and... BENGHAZI!!! — carl and sons
- Toomey wants flexibility for the President in relation to these pending budget cuts so that when things go badly and people are inconvenienced and/or suffering, the Republicans can blame the President.— kenmeehan
- wasn't the sequester originally the president's idea? — hannibal barca
- CNN Opinion, Tue February 26, 2013:
"The problem for Republicans is that the polls show that the approval rating of the GOP is in the tank while President Obama is doing relatively well. According to Quinnipiac University, only 19% of Americans approve of how Republicans are handling their job.
Obama is enjoying his highest favorability ratings since 2009, with 60% having a favorable rating of him in a Washington Post-ABC poll. The likelihood, as in 1995-1996, is that the public will blame the dysfunction on the GOP rather than Democrats and the party will suffer a further erosion of its standing as a result.
According to a recent poll by the Pew Foundation and USA Today, Republicans would be blamed for the cuts by almost half of Americans, while only 31% would blame Obama."— He Visto Todo - Did you just quote an "Op Ed" piece from CNN?!? Lol, why not just quote Soros or MSNBC??? — Professor1982
Jonathan Tamari is the Inquirer’s correspondent in Washington, where he follows the Philadelphia area’s interests and representatives. Tamari comes to D.C. after two years as a beat writer reporting on the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL (where, a political source once told him, there are at least rules against hitting below the knees). He previously wrote about politics and government from Trenton, reporting on the characters and color of New Jersey state government.Jersey born and bred, Tamari now lives in the capital city, where he is looking for stories, places to run, soccer bars and good meals.
Reach him at jtamari@phillynews.com.
Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @JonathanTamari.
