Public Notice, a group backed by Charles and David Koch, has released a video ad blasting President Barack Obama for overstating the harm from the automatic spending cuts that began Saturday.
The reductions will total $85 billion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
"President Obama calls sequestration a 'meat cleaver' that will 'eviscerate' government services," the ad's narrator says, as pennies drop into a jar.
"What is sequestration? A 3 percent cut in government spending. Three cents out of every dollar the government spends. We're more than $16 trillion in debt, and the government wastes billions each year on duplicate programs. Americans have made tough choices and cut back. Washington refuses. Call Washington and ask them why it's so hard to cut spending."
Public Notice is officially a non-partisan group, but former George W. Bush administration official Gretchen Hamel leads serves as its executive director, and the conservative Koch brothers donated a total of $8 million to the organization from 2009 to 2011.
"Now that the political posturing is over, it's time for Washington to come up with the best way to implement the sequester or offer smarter cuts to replace it," Hamel said in a statement.
"Finding just three cents on every dollar in the annual federal budget to replace sequestration isn't 'draconian' or 'drastic,' — it's the responsible thing to do."
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