WASHINGTON, March 4 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday said that the ongoing government spending cuts will hurt U. S. families and slow the nation's economic growth.
The government should manage the spending cuts "as best we can, try to minimize the impacts on American families," Obama said at the first Cabinet meeting of his second term.
Obama on Friday signed an order to officially start the 85- billion-U.S.-dollar across-the-board government spending cuts for this fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, after the White House and Republicans failed to reach a plan to stop the spending cuts from taking effect.
"It makes sense for us to take a balanced approach that takes a long view and doesn't reduce our commitment to things like education and basic research that will help us grow over the long term," Obama noted.
"I will continue to seek out partners on the other side of the aisle so that we can create the kind of balanced approach of spending cuts, revenues, entitlement reform that everybody knows is the right way to do things," he said.
"We're going to do our best to make sure that our agencies have the support they need to try to make some very difficult decisions, understanding that there are going to be families and communities that are hurt, and that this will slow our growth. It will mean lower employment in the United States than otherwise would have been," Obama stressed.
Obama on Monday nominated three Cabinet-level officials, a big step to form his second-term leadership team. He promoted Gina McCarthy, an official of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to lead the agency, and tapped MIT physicist Ernest Moniz to run the Energy Department. He also picked Clinton-era budget expert Sylvia Burwell as the director of White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
WASHINGTON, March 1 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday signed an order to start the 85 billion U.S. dollars across-the-board government spending cuts, wrapping up weeks of blaming game between the White House and Republicans.
Obama's signature officially initiated the spending cuts starting Friday after U.S. lawmakers failed to reach a replacement plan, the White House said on Friday night. Full story
WASHINGTON, March 4 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday tapped Washington budget veteran Sylvia Mathews Burwell as the director of White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Burwell once served as deputy director of the OMB in the Clinton administration. If confirmed by U.S. Senate, Burwell, president of Walmart Foundation, a philanthropic arm of the retail titan, will replace acting OMB director Jeffrey Zients, to act as White House's budget chief. She has to cope with some imminent challenges including the negative effects caused by the ongoing government spending cuts and the mounting public debt surpassing 16 trillion U.S. dollars. Full story
WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- The sequester, or across-the-board automatic spending cuts for the U.S. federal government, is set to take effect on March 1.
Following are four questions and answers about the sequester. Full story
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