Obama administration, lawmakers condemn budget cuts but spread blame as deadline nears

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FILE – In this Feb. 19, 2013 file photo President Barack Obama pauses while talking about sequestration in the Eisenhower Executive Office building on the White House complex in Washington. Lawmakers and the president on the brink of yet another compromise-or-else deadline Friday, March 1, 2013. (AP ?Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

WASHINGTON - The automatic budget cuts set to take hold this week were roundly condemned Sunday as the Obama administration and congressional Republicans bickered over who's to blame for the failure to reach a deal to stave off the $85 billion reduction in government services that threatens the fragile economic recovery.

The grim picture is emerging as the White House and lawmakers count down the days until the government is forced to make drastic cuts in domestic and defence spending with hardly any leeway to save some programs from the budget knife. This would affect everything from commercial flights to meat inspections.

The Obama administration upped the pressure Sunday evening by releasing state-by-state reports on the impact of the looming budget cuts in an effort designed to get hold-out lawmakers to compromise or face unhappy constituents.

The so-called sequester now approaching was never supposed to happen. It was designed as an unpalatable fallback, to take effect only in case a specially established bipartisan congressional super-committee failed to come up with $1 trillion or more in savings from government programs.

Obama has not been able to find success for his balanced approach of reducing deficits through a combination of targeted savings and tax increases. Obama has proposed closing tax loopholes that benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

"Unfortunately, it appears that Republicans in Congress have decided that instead of compromising — instead of asking anything of the wealthiest Americans — they would rather let these cuts fall squarely on the middle class," Obama said on Saturday, in his last weekly radio and Internet address before the deadline but unlikely to be his final word on the subject.

"We just need Republicans in Washington to come around," Obama added. "Because we need their help to finish the job of reducing our deficit in a smart way that doesn't hurt our economy or our people."

House Republicans have said reduced spending needs to be the focus and have rejected the president's demand to include higher taxes as part of a compromise. They say legislation passed in early January already raises taxes on the wealthiest Americans to generate an estimated $600 billion for the Treasury over a decade.

With Friday's deadline nearing, few in the U.S. capital were optimistic that a realistic compromise could be found. Instead of dealing with the problem at hand, both sides made assigning blame for the sequester a priority as the clock ticked down.

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said there was little hope to dodge the cuts "unless the Republicans are willing to compromise and do a balanced approach."

No, it's the Democrats who are to blame, Republicans countered.

"The reason there is no agreement is because there's no leadership from the president on actually recognizing what the problem is," said Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn.

If Congress does not step in, a top-to-bottom series of cuts will be spread across domestic and defence agencies in a way that would fundamentally change how government serves its people.

Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer told reporters that the Republicans are "so focused on not giving the president another win" that they will cost thousands of jobs. To back up their point, the White House released state-by-state tallies for how many dollars and jobs the budget cuts would mean to each state.

And those cuts will hurt. The cuts would lead to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of government workers and contractors.

Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said the cuts would harm the readiness of U.S. fighting forces. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said travellers could see delayed flights. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said 70,000 fewer children from low-income families would have access to pre-kindergarten Head Start early education programs. And furloughed meat inspectors could leave plants idled.

The White House was ready with state-by-state reports designed to get hold-out lawmakers to compromise or face unhappy constituents. The numbers compiled from federal agencies and the White House's budget office are based only on the $85 billion in cuts for this fiscal year, from March to September, that are set to take effect Friday.

White House officials said Ohio, Republican House Speaker John Boehner's home state, would be hit hard: $25.1 million in education spending and another $22 million for students with disabilities. Some 2,500 children from low-income families would also be removed from Head Start programs.

Officials also said their analysis showed Kentucky would lose $93,000 in federal funding for a domestic abuse program, meaning 400 fewer victims being served in Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's home state.

Some governors said the budget impasse was just the latest crisis in Washington that is keeping businesses from hiring and undermining the ability of state leaders to develop their own spending plans.

"It's senseless and it doesn't need to happen," said Maryland's Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley, during the annual meeting of the National Governors Association this weekend. "This really threatens to hurt a lot of families in our state and kind of flat line our job growth for the next several months."

The budget cuts were all but certain to come up when Obama dines with the governors Sunday evening at the White House. But time is running out and hope is waning.

Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, called the looming defence cuts "unconscionable" and urged Obama to call lawmakers to the White House or the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, for a last-minute budget summit.

"I won't put all the blame all on the president of the United States. But the president leads. The president should be calling us over somewhere — Camp David, the White House, somewhere — and us sitting down and trying to avert these cuts," McCain said.

LaHood, who served as a Republican representing Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives, urged his colleagues to watch "Lincoln," Steven Spielberg's film about President Abraham Lincoln's political skills.

"Everybody around here ought to go take a look at the 'Lincoln' movie, where they did very hard things by working together, talking together and compromising," LaHood said. "That's what's needed here."

But there are few signs of urgency among congressional leaders, who have recently indicated their willingness to let the cuts take effect and stay in place for weeks, if not much longer.

The sequester cuts, with few exceptions, are designed to hit all accounts equally. The law gives Obama little leeway to ease the pain. Even if granted flexibility to apply the cuts with more discretion — a legislative step Republicans say they might pursue — White House officials say that would still require severe reductions.

McCaskill and Coburn appeared on "Fox News Sunday." McCain was interviewed on CNN's "State of the Union." LaHood spoke with CNN and NBC's "Meet the Press." Duncan spoke to CBS' "Face the Nation."

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Associated Press writers Philip Elliott, Steve Peoples and Ken Thomas in Washington contributed to this report.