Congressional Republicans are demanding that President Obama meet the Friday deadline for laying out how his administration will carry out the spending cuts from sequestration that are part of the "fiscal cliff."
“Tomorrow (September 7) is the deadline, which has us wondering … will President Obama comply with the Sequestration Transparency Act he signed into law?” the office of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wrote in a blog post.
GOP aides say they expect the White House to delay the report to prevent it from distracting from President Obama’s big acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night.
GOP aides say they expect the White House to delay the report to prevent it from distracting from President Obama’s big acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night.
The report will for the first time detail where the sequestered cuts would come from in the budget, should Congress not act to stop them.
Behind presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Republicans have attacked Obama for the sequestered cuts, arguing the president has failed to find a solution that would prevent a hollowing out of the military. Obama has countered that it's the GOP who has stood in the way of a solution by refusing to agree to tax increases in a deficit deal.
The House has passed a sequester replacement package that includes significant entitlement cuts, but Democrats have rejected that approach and are demanding shallower cuts along with tax increases. The standoff is certain to last beyond the election.
Missing deadlines is not unprecedented for Obama's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which was tasked with crafting the sequester report.
OMB's midsession budget review, for instance, was due by July 16, but released on July 27.
