The nation’s two senior national security officials, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Secretary of State John F. Kerry, said Wednesday that the reductions would hurt the nation’s global standing.
“There is no mistaking that the rigid nature of the cuts forced upon this department, and their scale, will result in a serious erosion of readiness across the force,” Panetta told employees in a memo.
The Pentagon announcement sparked fresh partisan sniping, with Republicans insisting that it is President Obama’s responsibility to prevent the defense cuts from taking effect.
“As the commander-in-chief, President Obama is ultimately responsible for our military readiness, so it’s fair to ask: what is he doing to stop his sequester that would ‘hollow out’ our Armed Forces?” House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) said in a statement.
Obama, on the other hand, continued his efforts to pressure GOP lawmakers to embrace his proposed fix for the sequester, sitting for eight interviews with handpicked television stations in states that would be hit hard by reductions.
“There’s a better way to do it than this,” Obama told Boston’s WCVB, an ABC affiliate. “But the key is for [Republicans] to go ahead to put forward a balanced, responsible approach that will avoid cuts to things like Head Start programs, medical programs, help for the mentally ill, all these things that have an impact on people’s day-to-day lives.”
The interviews were part of an intensifying push by the president to persuade lawmakers to pass a short-term measure delaying the start of the sequester, which cuts $85 billion in federal spending this year and $1.2 trillion over the next decade.
A report this week by economists at Wells Fargo Securities said Maryland, Virginia and the District — in addition to Hawaii and Alaska — are the places that are likely to be most hurt by the sequester. Federal spending represents about 20 percent of economic activity in those three local jurisdictions — higher than anywhere else in the country, the economists said.
Defense Comptroller Robert F. Hale told reporters Wednesday that $1.1 billion out of $4.8 billion in civilian payroll cuts in fiscal 2013 will come from the paychecks of residents of the District, Maryland and Virginia.
The cuts also will have a “very substantial” impact on the private sector because of reductions in contract spending, Hale said, although he did not provide details. Uniformed personnel are exempt from the sequester.
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