House Speaker John Boehner will spell out the GOP’s latest approach to the spending cuts known as the sequester during a Monday afternoon press conference.
House Republicans and the White House remain at an impasse over the measure due to take effect on Friday. The Republican-controlled House remains adamant that it won’t accept new taxes while President Barack Obama continues asking for more revenue.
U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, appearing on MSNBC, reiterated that the House GOP will stand firm and criticized President Barack Obama for not offering a solution less than a week before the cuts are scheduled to take effect.
“We’re not willing to put revenue on the table,” the deputy majority whip said. “We’re here largely because they wouldn’t work with us, and frankly we’re still looking to work with them.”
Obama, speaking before the National Governor’s Association on Monday, repeated his argument for more tax revenue through closing loopholes and ending reductions.
“These cuts do not have to happen,” he said. “Congress can turn them off at any time with just a little bit of compromise.”
Obama called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Boehner last week to discuss the sequester, which will see an initial $85 billion in indiscriminate across-the-board cuts — the first outreach on the issue since New Year’s Eve — but neither side reported progress.
Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Heck of Nevada penned an op-ed piece in the Las Vegas Review-Journal over the weekend in which he reiterated that the House has passed two bills to address the sequester, which the Democratic-controlled Senate failed to consider.
“House Republicans have acted,” he wrote. “But only in Washington can something like the sequester, denounced by both sides of the aisle, become reality.”
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