Jamie Dupree's Washington Insider: White House details automatic budget cuts

A week after the original deadline, the White House has submitted a report to Congress detailing how $110 billion in automatic budget cuts would hit the federal government, chopping accounts in almost every corner of the federal budget.

Domestic spending accounts would see a reduction of either 7.6% or 8.2%, depending on the type of spending, while certain defense accounts would be reduced by 9.4%.

The savings for one year would not come close to closing the annual budget gap, which has been over $1 trillion for the last three years.

The White House Office of Management and Budget repeatedly made clear in the report that the Obama Administration does not want these automatic cuts to occur.

"(T)he report leaves no question that the sequestration would be deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments, and core government functions," it said.

Both sides used the arrival of the report to make their own partisan points, emphasizing their own solutions to the budget deficit issue.

"The President?s own defense secretary has said these cuts would hollow out our Armed Forces, yet the President refuses to join Republicans who want to responsibly replace them before they go into effect," said Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.

"Today?s report demonstrates exactly why we need to replace the sequester by passing a big and balanced deficit reduction plan this year," said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who used the term "balanced" - which for Democrats means an increase in tax revenues, something Republicans reject as an option.

The $110 billion in cuts would touch everything you can imagine in the budget, and that is clear in the 394 pages of details of this report.

* The Executive Office of the President at the White House would lose $5 million
* Senators' Official Personnel and Office Expense Account would be cut $32 million; House members would lose $101 million
* The Judiciary Office Building Development and Operations Fund would lose $1 million
* The National Agricultural Statistics Service would lose $13 million
* Land Acquisition programs at the Forest Service would be cut $4 million
* Aircraft Procurement in the Army would lose $843 million
* Low Income Home Energy aid rograms would be cut by $283 million
* The Flood Hazard Mapping and Risk Analysis Program would be cut $8 million

And the list goes on an on and on.

But some areas are exempt, like money for the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the Open World Leadership Center Trust Fund and the John C. Stennis Center for Public Service Training and Development.

You can read the report for yourself at this link.

Congress has several choices - lawmakers can leave the automatic cuts in place, or they can come up with a plan to replace the $110 billion in spending reductions.

Or, lawmakers could simply postpone the cuts for a year or more - or get rid of them entirely.

All of that will be addressed after the November elections.

Source: http://www.newstalkradiowhio.com/weblogs/jamie-dupree/2012/sep/14/white-house-details-automatic-budget-cuts/

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