President Obama doesn't want to go back to the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration, telling reporter Sam Stein over the weekend
he wouldn't sign any bill that lets those cuts return on October 1.
I’ve been very clear. We are not going to have a situation where, for example, our education spending goes back to its lowest level since the year 2000 -- since 15 years ago -- despite a larger population and more kids to educate. ... We can’t do that to our kids, and I’m not going to sign it,” Obama said.
Remember sequestration? All those federal agency
spending cuts—$1.2 trillion over 10 years—that no one thought would ever go into effect, partly because Democrats opposed them and partly because Republicans would never let their precious Defense Department's budget be slashed alongside those of all the other federal agencies. But then it
did go into effect on March 1, 2013, because no one could forge enough of an agreement between the two parties to stop the monster they had created from devouring the government's budget. Finally, a
budget deal negotiated later that year by Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin provided $63 billion in sequestration spending relief for two years, which comes to an end this fall.
Obama's new budget calls for a seven percent increase in spending above sequestration caps even as House Republicans have proposed $5.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade with a corresponding increase in the defense budget. (Why prioritize education when we can just build a better bomb?)
The discordant budgets foreshadow what will almost surely be a fight to the finish on funding the government before the current spending deal ends.
Lack of agreement on a future path raises the likelihood that lawmakers would simply pass a continuing resolution in order to keep the government open. Should that happen, sequestration would return on Oct. 1. Since the president has now said he won't sign a bill that allows sequestration to return, it would raise the possibility of another government shutdown.
To some extent, this battle may come down to just how badly the GOP's fiscal hawks want Defense Department funding to increase. The worse they want it, the more likely that some agreement to avoid sequestration can be forged with their help.
Sadly, that may be the best possible outcome given the Congress we're dealing with.