Obama to press Republicans on averting cuts

Washington, Feb 19 (AP) President Barack Obama today was to urge congressional Republicans to accept more tax revenue in order to avert looming, across-the-board budget cuts due to take effect in less than two weeks. The USD 85 billion in cuts, a severe attempt at addressing the country's massive deficit, will start taking effect on March 1 unless Congress acts. The White House says the cuts could derail an economy still suffering from high unemployment and sluggish growth. The cuts are just one of a handful of fiscal deadlines facing a sharply divided Congress, which is on break this week. In recent days, military leaders and heads of the State Department and other departments have appeared before Congress with warnings of what the cuts would do to their work. Meanwhile, a bipartisan proposal today by co-chairs of an influential deficit-reduction commission called for reducing the deficit by USD 2.4 trillion over the next 10 years, with much of the savings coming through health care reform, closing tax loopholes, a stingier adjustment of the Social Security pension system's cost of living increases and other measures. The March 1 spending cuts were as first set to begin taking effect on January 1, but the White House and lawmakers agreed to push it off for two months in order to create space to work on a larger budget deal. With little progress in recent weeks, Obama is calling for the cuts to be put off again, though it's unclear whether another delay would have any impact on the prospects for a broader budget agreement. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said the Republican agrees the cuts are a bad way to reduce spending, but he put the responsibility for averting the cuts on Democrats. "A solution now requires the Senate controlled by the president's party to finally pass a plan of their own," spokesman Brendan Buck said. Obama wants to offset the cuts through a combination of targeted spending cuts and increased tax revenue. The White House is backing a proposal unveiled last week by Senate Democrats that is in line with the president's principles. But that plan was met with an icy reception by Republicans, who oppose raising more tax revenue in order to offset the cuts. Republican leaders say the president got the tax increases he wanted at the beginning of the year when Congress agreed to raise taxes on family income above USD 450,000 a year. The Democrats propose to generate revenue by plugging some tax loopholes. Those include tax breaks for the oil and natural gas industry and businesses that have sent jobs overseas, and by taxing millionaires at a rate of at least 30 per cent. (AP) KUN 02191937 NNNN