Budget/Appropriations

The Pentagon’s budget will be reduced to 2007 levels if the sequester takes effect on Friday.

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A new poll finds a majority opposes spending cuts for most government programs, including defense and entitlements. 

 According to a Pew Research poll released Friday, a majority supports either increasing spending or keeping spending at current levels for 18 of the 19 federal programs surveyed.

The poll was issued a week before $85 billion in cuts are set to begin hitting the government on March 1. 

The most popular programs are veteran’s benefits, as 91 percent say it should be increased or maintained. Eighty-seven percent support keeping Social Security spending at current levels or increasing it, while 89 percent favor increased or current spending for education. 

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Graham argued the cuts would "unvravel" the U.S. military, while Paul said sequestration was not "a real cut in spending."

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A leading Republican opponent of sequestration on Friday conceded that cuts to the Pentagon are likely to be triggered in March despite his warnings about dire consequences for the military.

Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the question now facing lawmakers is how long the sequestered cuts will stay on the books.

"Sequester is going to kick in and as people see what it is ... that will hopefully force us" to come up with a solution for stopping them, McKeon told reporters during a breakfast in Washington.

He said lawmakers have "locked ourselves" into sequestration due to the impasse over how to replace the more than $1 trillion in automatic budget cuts that are coming over 10 years.

"We are going to be forced into it," McKeon said. "We have just not been able to get past the politics of it [all]."

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Appropriations Chairman Rogers is preparing a continuing resolution that would prevent a government shutdown beyond March 27

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A near-full roster of the Joint Chiefs made a rare appearance on Capitol Hill to urge Congress to avert sequestration.

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President Obama on Monday authorized the expenditure of $50 million to support the French-led military intervention in Mali.

The United States has been refueling French fighter jets and transporting French troops and equipment to help rout militant Islamists from the northern part of the desert country but has said it won't send boots on the ground. The new funds will also support the neighboring nation of Chad, which has agreed to send 2,000 troops experienced in desert warfare to retake the north – the largest contingent of any African nation.

“I hereby determine that an unforeseen emergency exists that requires immediate military assistance to Chad and France in their efforts to secure Mali from terrorists and violent extremists,” Obama wrote to the secretaries of State and Defense. “I further determine that these requirements cannot be met under the authority of the Arms Export Control Act or any other provision of law.”

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The defense industry is joining forces with health, education and other domestic sectors in a last-minute push to stop the sequester. 

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Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, blasted the President Obama Friday after a fact sheet released by the White House on the impact of the sequester did not include information about potential defense cuts.

"Today the White House finally broke their silence on the consequences President Obama's sequester would have on domestic spending. I wouldn't downplay those important impacts, but I was stunned at the President's silence on national security risks and I am frustrated that he continues to look to our men and women in uniform to pay the cost of America's debt crisis," McKeon said in a statement. "After all, it is their lives that are at greater risks today, because of the cuts already imposed."

Speaking to reporters shortly after the release of the fact sheet, Office of Management and Budget federal controller Danny Werfel said that because "there has been in the public domain a lot of discussion to date about the impact that the sequester would have on the defense realm," the White House wanted to highlight that "the impacts on our domestic priorities as a nation would be just as severe."

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The legislation would replace the first year of sequestration with a 10-percent reduction in the federal workforce.

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