The top elected Republican in Congress says he's looking for prison sentences for those associated with IRS efforts to single out conservative advocacy groups applying for tax-exempt status.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, stoked conservative ire toward the Obama administration on Wednesday in the wake of an IRS inspector general report chastising agency employees for subjecting conservative and Tea Party groups to additional scrutiny.

"My question isn't about who's going to resign," Boehner said at a weekly press conference on Capitol Hill. "My question's about who's going to jail."

While the IRS report suggested that the employees' actions were not prompted by any outside influence, Republicans have nonetheless seized on the controversy, and openly suggested that the administration was deliberately targeting conservatives through the IRS.

"“Basically all we’ve gotten from the IRS, on the other hand, is an attempt to scapegoat some folks out in Cincinnati and a laughable attempt to move past this whole issue with a ridiculous op-ed claiming ‘mistakes were made,'" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday morning on the Senate floor.

McConnell and the other 44 Senate Republicans all signed a letter to the administration demanding that IRS witnesses and materials be fully made available to congressional investigators.

"There are laws in place to prevent this type of abuse," Boehner said. "Someone made a conscious decision to harass and hold up these requests for tax exempt status. We need to know who they are, and whether they violated the law. Clearly, somebody violated the law."

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 10:34 AM EDT

House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio, publicly distanced himself on Thursday from another member of his Republican leadership team who criticized a component of President Barack Obama’s budget having to do with entitlement reform.

Boehner said that he had spoken with Rep. Greg Walden, Ore., the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee who on Wednesday criticized “chained CPI,” a part of Obama’s 2014 budget which changes how Social Security benefits are calculated to grow over time.

Walden has fallen under increased scrutiny from conservatives, who have threatened a primary challenge, along with Democrast who wish to cast the House GOP leadership as mired in discord.

"I've made it clear that I disagree with what Chairman Walden said," Boehner said at his weekly press conference, calling the chained CPI proposal "the least we must do to begin to solve the problem of Social Security."

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Walden, speaking Wednesday on CNN, was sharply critical of the chained CPI proposal contained with President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget.

“Well, once again, you're trying to balance this budget on the backs of seniors and I just think it's not the right way to go,” he said. “I don't see this budget as either on time, adding up, balancing, and, further, I think it really does go right at seniors in a way they're going to be shocked, coming out of the administration.”

The problem for Walden, however, was that the chained CPI proposal was included as an enticement of Republicans, who have clamored for any sort of entitlement reform from the White House. Moreover, Obama’s decision to include such a concession – which would essentially amount to a cut in benefits, over time, for seniors – angered progressive supporters of the president.

White House press secretary Jay Carney on Thursday noted that the chained CPI proposal in Obama’s budget came “at the specific request of behest of Republican leaders and represent a “cynical attempt to disown a proposal that came from Republican leaders.”

The NRCC chairman’s comments drew the ire of many fellow conservatives, and in short order.

"Greg Walden ought to think about clarifying his remarks on chained CPI, and think about clarifying soon," said Chris Chocola, the president of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth.

But when he did offer a clarifying statement, Walden doubled down on his original sentiment.

“Chairman Walden supports the budget passed by House Republicans that preserves and protects Medicare and Social Security while also balancing the budget in 10 years,” said an NRCC spokesperson. “He disagrees with President Obama's political plan that hurts current seniors just so he can pay for more wasteful spending."

Walden’s difference with fellow Republicans, however, illustrates Republicans’ difficulty in handling the politics of entitlement issues in recent years.

Mitt Romney and his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, for instance were sharply critical of the $716 billion in Medicare savings contained within Obama’s health care reform law, and vowed to restore the cuts if elected. But Ryan’s subsequent budget this year, in his capacity as chairman of the House Budget Committee, counts those very cuts in Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and reinsurers toward balancing the budget.

Moreover, Ryan’s budgets for the past three years – which Republicans have generally supported in overwhelming fashion – have called for sweeping changes to Medicare, namely by transforming it into a private marketplace in which the government would provide a voucher (or “premium support” payment) to seniors to buy insurance for themselves.

Democrats eagerly used those Medicare proposals against Republicans in the election of 2012, further cementing entitlement programs’ reputation as a “third rail” in politics, which politicians should not touch, or risk political peril.

Susan Walsh / AP

President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks during an Easter Prayer Breakfast in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, April 5, 2013.

With the Friday release of ingredients of President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for the new fiscal year, it is clear that the fiscal policy divide remains as wide as ever between Democrats and Republicans.

Obama will once again propose some changes in entitlement programs — such as a new formula for Social Security, which would effectively reduce retirement benefits, and raising the premiums that upper-income Medicare beneficiaries would need to pay for coverage.

Some Republicans have supported such proposals in the past and might support them now.

But in a sense it’s the summer of 2011 all over again, when a tentative deal between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner collapsed. For example, the new formula for Social Security benefits, called “chained CPI,” was part of the failed Obama-Boehner negotiations in 2011.

However, there’s been one decisive change since that busted budget deal two years ago: On Jan. 2, Obama signed into law a tax increase worth about $600 billion over ten years. Since then, Republican congressional leaders have repeatedly rejected Obama’s and other Democrats’ calls for another round of tax increases.

After elements of Obama’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget plan were reported Friday, former congressional Budget Committee staffer Stan Collender said, “A grand bargain is still a long way — as in years — away. The president may get an agreement that can pass the Senate (although I doubt it), but the real problem is, and always has been, the House. The House GOP can't agree to additional revenues without risking its majority status so it won’t much care about what the Senate GOP agrees to do.”

House Speaker John Boehner signaled just that in response to the president’s budget. “If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there's no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes. That's no way to lead and move the country forward," Boehner said. 

Among House Republicans a deep-seated skepticism remains that increased revenue would actually be used for deficit reduction, instead of paying for new federal entitlements.

In simplest terms, here’s how the three different budget blueprints offered by Obama, Senate Democrats and House Republicans compare:

The Obama plan: Higher taxes through elimination of certain tax preferences for upper-income people; more cost-sharing by upper-income people for Medicare benefits; reductions in Social Security benefits through the new “chained CPI” formula.

The Senate Democrats’ plan: Higher taxes through elimination of certain tax preferences for upper-income people; some relatively small cost-saving changes in Medicare.

The House Republicans: Tax reform through lowering income tax rates and eliminating most tax credits and other preferences – but no additional revenue to be raised, other than from greater efficiency of a reformed tax code; fundamental change in Medicare for those who become eligible for benefits in 2024 or later, making the program a more market-based system, with subsidies for lower-income and sicker beneficiaries.

If an accord is to be reached between Obama and Republicans, the chained CPI idea could be one building block of a deal, but Collender cautions “only if (new tax) revenues are part of the equation. Obama — and congressional Democrats won't agree to that without getting the tax changes they want in return.”

And Democrats signaled displeasure with the president’s inclusion of changes in Social Security. Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Reps. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said Friday that when dealing with the Republicans, Obama “should not try to bargain for their good will with policies that hurt our seniors….”

They said any cuts in Social Security benefits “could be disastrous for our economy because the recession has led more seniors to rely to Social Security for income.”

Meanwhile, the discouraging employment data released Friday underscored the continued need for more federal revenue. With faster economic growth and more jobs being created, federal revenues would begin to return to their normal levels and would help reduce deficits and slow the growth of the federal debt.

There was some good news on the revenue front Friday as the CBO reported that individual income and payroll tax revenues increased by 12 percent in the first six months of the fiscal year, compared to the same period in the prior year. This was partly due to the tax increase that Obama signed into law.

From 1997 to 2007, federal revenues averaged 18.5 percent of gross domestic product. In fiscal year 2012, revenues were only 15.8 percent of GDP and the Congressional Budget Office estimates they will amount to 16.9 percent of GDP in the current fiscal year.

Some veteran budget observers look back on the year-end fiscal cliff deal Obama struck with GOP leaders as a lost opportunity to get more revenue.

“The amount of revenue that was generated by the deal was far lower than the president and the Democrats had hoped for, and even lower than the amount the Republicans seemed willing at various times to put on the table,” former CBO director Robert Reischauer noted right after Obama signed the tax increase into law.

The deal Obama agreed to at the end of 2012, Reischauer said, will signal that higher income tax rates “are off the table in the future” – which he said was “very damaging” since higher revenues will be needed over the next few decades.

One interesting new element in Obama’s proposal leaked Friday is sure to spark more discussion in the weeks ahead: limiting tax sheltered retirement accounts.

A senior administration official said the budget plan will include a proposal to prohibit individuals from accumulating over $3 million in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), 401k accounts, and other tax-preferred retirement accounts.

Under current law, some Americans can accumulate millions of dollars in their retirement accounts, which this official said is “substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.”

This proposal is yet another indication that the relentless search for more revenue continues.

Related: 

Obama to offer compromise budget to Republicans

Boehner says Obama holding entitlement reform 'hostage' for tax hikes

As First Read wrote this morning, President Barack Obama's budget is expected to contain an additional $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years -- including a measure to change the way cost-of-living increases are calculated for Social Security recipients. 

The outline, which mirrors an abandoned compromise offer from the White House to House Speaker John Boehner last year, is already causing griping on the left because the entitlement changes would effectively decrease payments to beneficiaries.

But the budget isn’t exactly getting a ringing endorsement from Boehner either. The House Speaker said in a statement Friday that the White House is holding the entitlement reforms "hostage" by asking for further revenues. 

Boehner's full statement follows: 

"The president and I were not able to reach an agreement late last year because his offers never lived up to his rhetoric. Despite talk about so-called balance, the president's last offer was significantly skewed in favor of higher taxes and included only modest entitlement savings. He said he could go no further toward the  middle, and that's why his last offer was rejected.  In the end, the president got his tax hikes on the wealthy with no corresponding spending cuts. At some point we need to solve our spending problem, and what the president has offered would leave us with a budget that never balances.  In reality, he's moved in the wrong direction, routinely taking off the table entitlement reforms he's previously told me he could support.

"When the president visited the Capitol last month, House Republicans stated a desire to find common ground and urged him not to make savings we agree upon conditional on another round of tax increases. If reports are accurate, the president has not heeded that call. If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there's no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes. That's no way to lead and move the country forward." 

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 5, 2013 10:46 AM EDT

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Friday demanded an immediate apology from a fellow Republican congressman, who referred to laborers with the derogatory term "wetback."

Related: Republicans and Latinos chide Rep. Young's for racial slurs 

The Capitol's top elected Republican condemned Alaska Rep. Don Young's comments during a radio interview on Thursday, in which he casually used the slur to refer to farm workers whose jobs have been rendered useless by technological advances.

"Congressman Young’s remarks were offensive and beneath the dignity of the office he holds," Boehner said in a statement. "I don’t care why he said it – there’s no excuse and it warrants an immediate apology."

Young said Thursday on KRBD: "My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes. It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine."

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Young said in a subsequent statement released by his office that he "meant no disrespect" by the remark, explaining that the term was one used commonly during his days growing up on a farm in California.

The comment, though, threatens to inflame Republicans' already-poor standing among Latino voters, an increasingly influential voting bloc who favored President Barack Obama and many Democrats during last fall's campaign.

Democrats, already, have seized upon the comments.

"As the Republican minority outreach efforts develop, I’d advise their strategists to list 'don’t say racial slurs like 'wetback'' as a bedrock for their messaging," said Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, Texas, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, on Friday.

The risk of political fallout for Republicans stemming from Young's remarks have prompted other Republicans to condemn the remarks on Friday.

"The words used by Representative Young emphatically do not represent the beliefs of the Republican Party," said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who oversaw the recent release of a report stressing the need to improve the GOP's outreach to Hispanic voters.

"As I have continued to say, everyone in this country deserves to be treated with dignity and respect," Priebus added. "Our party represents freedom and opportunity for every American and a beacon of hope to those seeking liberty throughout the world. Offensive language and ethnic slurs have no place in our public discourse."

"Migrant workers come to America looking for opportunity and a way to provide a better life for their families. They do not come to this country to hear ethnic slurs and derogatory language from elected officials," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican. "The comments used by Rep. Young do nothing to elevate our party, political discourse or the millions who come here looking for economic opportunity."

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:42 AM EDT

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 5, 2013 1:49 PM EST

In an exclusive interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, House Speaker John Boehner said there is no easy way to stop the budget cuts -- known as the “sequester” -- that began taking effect Friday night, and voiced uncertainty over how Washington can solve the overall fiscal problems that have consumed the nation’s politics for more than two years.

“I don't think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved,” Boehner admitted in his interview with NBC’s David Gregory.

Boehner explained his strategy in the Republicans’ tax-and-spending standoff with President Barack Obama, saying that he didn’t want to “arbitrarily pull out a couple of tax expenditures” just to raise the revenue needed to avert $85 billion in spending cuts which are being made this year.

The president and many of his administration officials have warned of dire consequences to government services and national security if the sequester happens as planned.  But to avoid them and reach a deal, the president wants new tax increases, something Boehner and his fellow Republicans have insisted are off the table.

The spending cuts – which were intended to spur a bipartisan “grand bargain” on deficit reduction, entitlement reform and tax increases -- are part of the 2011 Budget Control Act which Obama signed into law.

Boehner voted for the law and urged his members to do likewise.

But now that the spending cuts are beginning, neither Boehner nor Obama wants them to continue. Yet they have been unable to reach an accord on an alternative measure.

Related: As meeting yields no breakthrough, Obama blames 'dumb' cuts on GOP, signs order

Larry Downing / Reuters

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, speaks briefly after a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House March 1, 2013.

Boehner insisted that Obama should abandon his effort to get more tax increases and instead focus on spending.

“Every American, in these tough economic times, has to find a way to balance their budget. They've got to make choices,” Boehner said. “They expect Washington to live within its means and to make choices as well.”  

He said, “It's time for the president and Senate Democrats to get serious about the long-term spending problem that we have.”

And he noted that if Obama has a credible alternative to the sequester, “why wouldn't Senate Democrats go ahead and pass it?”

Obama has insisted that any plan to replace the sequester must include new tax increases, for example by changing the tax treatment of corporate jets, and by ending tax preferences for oil and gas producers.

But Boehner said Obama had already gotten his tax increase in the deal that he made with Republicans in December. “The president got $650 billion of higher taxes on the American people on January the first,” Boehner said. “How much more does he want?”

Boehner did say that a comprehensive tax reform law would be a way to spark growth. That, in turn, would produce more tax revenue for the federal government.

“American family's wages aren't growing,” the House speaker said. “They're being squeezed. And as a result, we've got to find a way through our tax code to promote more economic growth in our country.  We can do this by closing loopholes, bringing the (tax) rates down for all Americans, making the tax code fairer. It will promote more economic growth.”

Obama said Friday it may take some time before members of Congress agree to bargain with him on how to replace the spending cuts.

He told reporters that he hoped that “after some reflection, as members of Congress start hearing from constituents who are being negatively impacted… that they step back and say, all right, is there a way for us to move forward on a package of entitlement reforms, tax reform, not raising tax rates, identifying programs that don't work, coming up with a plan that's comprehensive and that makes sense.”

He said, “It may take a couple of weeks. It may take a couple of months” before that happens, but in the meantime the spending cuts will dampen economic growth and hurt federal workers who are furloughed and federal contractors who lose work.

“It's going to mean hundreds of thousands of jobs lost,” he said. “That is real. We're not making that up.  That’s not a scare tactic, that’s a fact.”

But Boehner said, “I don't know whether it's going to hurt the economy or not. I don't think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work.”

The speaker said the House would pass a spending plan this week to fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, and that in his conversation with Obama at the White House Friday, the president had agreed “that we should not have any talk of a government shutdown. So I'm hopeful that the House and Senate will be able to work through this.”

Following Boehner on Meet the Press, Obama economic advisor Gene Sperling said Boehner ought to be willing to consider at least $400 billion more in tax revenue increases over the next ten years as part of a larger agreement on deficit reduction.

Sperling said Obama has already agreed to require higher-income Medicare recipients to pay higher premiums for their coverage than they now pay and has agreed to change the formula for Social Security benefits, which would in effect reduce benefit increases over time.

These were difficult concessions for Obama to make, Sperling said.

In the face of congressional Republicans charging that Obama and his aides have been exaggerating the effect of the spending cuts – with one House Republicans calling their effort “Scarequester” – Sperling said, “Nobody ever suggested that this harmful sequester – which the speaker himself said would be devastating to national security – was going to have all its impact in the first few days.”

But he argued that the spending reductions will “hurt a lot of communities that rely on military spending” and hurt public education.

As House Republicans begin to see the impact he said he hoped they “will choose bipartisan compromise over this absolutist position.”

He noted that on Saturday Obama made phone calls to both Democratic and GOP  senators to form a “caucus of common sense” and support an alternative to the spending cuts. 

Despite a “polite” meeting between congressional leaders and the president, Republicans see no short-term pathway to a budget compromise, House Speaker John Boehner told NBC News Friday.

“Listen, we’ve known about this for sixteen months,” Boehner told NBC’s David Gregory in an exclusive interview on Capitol Hill after the White House meeting. “And yet, even today there’s no plan from Senate Democrats or the White House to replace the sequester.”

Asked by Gregory if he sees any path forward for compromise, Boehner offered a less-than-optimistic assessment of the bipartisan session with Obama and the vice president. 

“If I did, that meeting at the White House today might have gone better,” Boehner replied. 

The full exclusive interview will run on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. Check your local listings. 

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 1, 2013 2:06 PM EST

It’s Friday, March 1, and that means the federal government has crossed the much-hyped and dreaded deadline for the fiscal reductions known as the “sequester.”

The members of Congress who for voted for the Budget Control Act – and the budget cuts contained within – and President Barack Obama who signed it into law on Aug. 2, 2011, may not have believed the day would arrive, but now it has.

But today is only the beginning of the beginning.

For one thing, Obama must sign an order formally starting the “sequester” or spending reductions, which according to a new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, would amount to $42 billion in the current fiscal year.

And White House aides have indicated that the president is not likely to put pen to paper on that order until after he meets with congressional leaders, a meeting slated for Friday morning.

Once Obama signs the order to start the spending cuts, any furloughs of federal workers could not begin at least for another 30 days due to federal regulations and to collective bargaining agreements which the government has with the unions that represent roughly half of the federal workforce.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi speaks during a news conference Feb. 28, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington.

So the Border Patrol Agents in Arizona won’t suddenly vanish on Friday and the civilians who repair Navy ships won’t be ordered to immediately put down their tools.

As with many things the federal government does, there are multiple rules, regulatory hurdles, avenues for appeal and opportunities for litigation.

As Under Secretary of Defense Robert Hale, the Pentagon’s Chief Financial Officer, explained last week, “The bottom line is, furloughs would not actually start for DOD employees until late April.”

He explained, “There's a whole series of notifications. We started the first one today (Feb. 20), with the notification to Congress, along with a message by the secretary of defense to our civilian employees. That starts a 45-day clock ticking. Until that clock has run out, we cannot proceed with furloughs.”

He added, “At some point in mid-March, we will send a notification to each employee who may be furloughed. That starts a 30-day clock, waiting period, before we can take any action. And then later on in April, we will send a decision to employees, and they have a one-week period, once we've made that decision, to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board.”  

The Merit Systems Protection Board is the independent agency which hears and decides complaints when a federal employee claims that he or she has been the victim of an unfair, punitive, or discriminatory personnel action. The board issued 7,585 decisions last year.

Related: Budget cuts likely to be felt on Main Street

In a memo sent Wednesday to Cabinet officers and the heads of federal agencies, Danny Werfel, the controller of the Office of Management and Budget, emphasized that agency heads “must allow employees’ exclusive representatives” – their unions – “to have pre-decisional involvement” in planned furloughs or other personnel actions “to the fullest extent practicable” and must bargain with the unions over the impact of furloughs. The head of each department or agency must comply with “any and all collective bargaining requirements.”

In his memo, Werfel did not flatly warn federal agency heads to not hire any new personnel, but he did say they should give “increased scrutiny” to hiring any new workers, as well to the money they spend on training programs, conferences, and travel.

Like Hale at the Pentagon, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano emphasized in her briefing for reporters this week that the effects of the spending cuts – while they will be substantial – won’t be instantaneous.

“The impacts people are going to see – and they will build over the next several weeks; you won’t see them immediately like a shutdown, but it will accrue over the next few weeks,” she said. “Lines, procedures, wait times (at U.S. ports of entry and airports) are all going to get longer.”

She added, “It won’t be like a (government) shutdown, where it’s like turning off the light switch. But all I can say for folks is these are the effects that will accrue. Please don’t yell at the customs officer or the TSO (transportation security officer) officer because the lines are long. The lines over the next few weeks are going to start to lengthen in some dramatic ways in parts of the country.”

Just as the personnel decisions will take weeks to ripple their way through the federal workforce, so too will decisions on contracts for new ships, drones, and electronic gadgets.

“I don't anticipate that we will cancel many, if any contracts, because we'd incur substantial costs,” Hale told reporters last week.

He said that due to the spending cuts, the Pentagon might delay entering into new contracts, “but I wouldn't expect that we will terminate existing contracts.”

Seeking to reassure contractors, Hale said, “If you've got a contract with us, we're going to pay you ... . Even under sequestration and furloughs, we will find a time to keep our payments to our employers and the vendors on time.”

The slow grinding of the bureaucratic wheels does not mean that furloughs won’t hurt, if they occur.

A fact sheet issued by the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal union which representing 650,000 federal and D.C. government workers, spells out some of the possible pain:

•Up to 22 days out of work with no pay, equivalent to a 20 percent pay cut;

•Reduced contribution to workers’ retirement savings accounts;

•Reduced take-home pay due to the deduction of health insurance benefits at the full salary rate.

But as a recent report from the Congressional Research Service pointed out, the sequestration procedures provide for exemptions for many groups.

Among the categories which the law spares from the spending cuts are:

•Social Security benefits

•The Medicaid health insurance program for low-income people

•Payments to individuals in the form of refundable tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-wage workers and the tax credits under the 2010 health care law to help people buy health insurance.

•Retirement benefits paid to retired federal workers

•Child Nutrition Programs, including the School Lunch and School Breakfast programs,

•The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called “food stamps”

•Pell Grants for college students

•Unobligated cash balances, carried over from prior years, for nondefense programs

•Pay for military personnel.

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 1, 2013 12:00 AM EST

With less than 36 hours to go until the much-discussed 'sequestration' deadline, the Senate blocked a pair of competing bills to prevent the broad, automatic cuts from taking effect.

Neither measure was expected to reach the 60-vote threshold required to move a fix forward, with Republicans and Democrats taking up the legislation largely for show the day before the cuts are slated to kick in. 

The Republican sequester ‘replacement’ proposal -- which would have offered the administration more authority to allocate the spending cuts -- was killed with a vote of 38 to 62. The White House had threatened to veto that bill in the unlikely event that it passed.

A Democratic plan focused on closing tax loopholes and raising some taxes garnered 51 votes, short of the 60 necessary to move it forward. 

With both sides still deadlocked over how to address the deficit, congressional leaders will meet with the president at the White House tomorrow. 

President Barack Obama lambasted Senate Republicans in a statement, saying that GOP opposition to the Democrats' bill stood in the way of a solution. 

"Even though a majority of Senators support [the Democrats'] approach, Republicans have refused to allow it an up-or-down vote - threatening our economy with a series of arbitrary, automatic budget cuts that will cost us jobs and slow our recovery," he said.

"Instead of closing a single tax loophole that benefits the well-off and well-connected, they chose to cut vital services for children, seniors, our men and women in uniform and their families," the statement read. "They voted to let the entire burden of deficit reduction fall squarely on the middle class."
"

Earlier Thursday, competing press conferences, lawmakers from both parties continued to lay blame at each other's feet as they acknowledged that the across-the-board reductions to the nation's military and domestic spending programs are inevitable.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid olds a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on the eve of the budget sequester Feb. 28, 2013 in Washington, DC.

House Speaker John Boehner argued Thursday that the budget ball remains in Democrats' court, a case he says he will make again tomorrow in the meeting with Obama.

"My message at the White House will be the same that I'm telling you today,” he said. “It's time for them to do their job and to pass a bill."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responded that Republican calls for Democratic action "take a lot of pizzazz."

"They've done nothing," Reid said, saying that House Republicans are hiding behind the lower chamber's now-expired passage of budget measures last year while failing to allow compromise legislation to come up for a vote.

The weariness over the sequester jockeying – which promises to drag on for weeks as the fight shifts to future deadlines for greenlighting federal funding -- even spilled over into the Senate chaplain’s opening prayer this morning.

Mentioning the cuts in his invocation, Senate Chaplain Rev. Barry Black prayed "Rise up, oh God, and save us from ourselves."

NBC's Mike Viqueira contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Thu Feb 28, 2013 1:41 PM EST

After weeks of argument over the sequester, bipartisan congressional leaders will meet with the president at the White House on Friday -- the same day that automatic federal spending cuts are scheduled to go into effect. 

President Barack Obama will meet with House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss the across-the-board budget reductions to federal agencies, aides told NBC News.

Republicans were quick to question why the White House would schedule the meeting only on the final day of the belabored back-and-forth over the cuts.

"If the President is serious about stopping the sequester, why did he schedule a meeting on Tuesday for Friday when the sequester hits at midnight on Thursday?" a Republican aide told NBC. "Either someone needs to buy the White House a calendar, or this is just a - belated - farce.  They ought to at least pretend to try."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that Obama also spoke briefly with congressional leaders Wednesday when he attended the unveiling of a statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks at the Capitol. 

Asked why the longer White House meeting is not happening today, Carney told reporters that "the Senate is still yet to vote, hopefully will vote tomorrow, on a proposal that achieves the kind of postponement of the sequester deadline that would allow Congress to move forward on balanced deficit reduction in a sensible, no-drama fashion that would avoid these unnecessary impacts across the economy and the country." 

That measure has very little chance of passing both chambers.

Carney also disputed the assumption that the sequester goes into effect at midnight on Thursday night. By law, the president must execute the cuts on March 1st, meaning that they can be averted until 11:59 ET on Friday, he said. 

The sequester's origins -- and mechanisms to stop the self-executing cuts -- have been the subject of finger-pointing between both parties. The president has blamed Republicans for refusing a compromise that would include the closure of tax loopholes, while the GOP has blamed Senate Democrats for failing to propose a legislative fix.

McConnell described the meeting Friday as an opportunity to discuss spending reductions more broadly. 

"The meeting Friday is an opportunity for us to visit with the President about how we can all keep our commitment to reduce Washington spending," he said in a statement. "With a $16.6 trillion national debt, and a promise to the American people to address it, one thing is perfectly clear: we will cut Washington spending. We can either secure those reductions more intelligently, or we can do it the President's way with across-the board cuts. But one thing Americans simply will not accept is another tax increase to replace spending reductions we already agreed to."

NBC's Kristen Welker contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:06 AM EST

With automatic, across-the-board spending cuts set to begin Friday, majorities of Americans believe that approach is not a good idea and also say the contentious budget negotiations make them less confident about the U.S. economy, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Click here for full poll results (.pdf)

Despite those findings, a majority still supports Congress moving ahead with either the current cuts or a plan containing even more cuts as a way to reduce the deficit, suggesting the public’s general appetite for reducing spending.

But the poll also shows that as the nation’s political actors once again quarrel over these automatic cuts totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years – commonly referred to as sequestration or the sequester – President Barack Obama finds himself in a much stronger position than his Republican adversaries. 

Related: NBC/WSJ poll: Public says GOP less interested in unity than Obama is

“If the president needs some tweaks and adjustments, the Republican Party is pretty much in need of a major makeover,” says Democratic pollster Fred Yang of Hart Research Associates, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. 

“The Republicans don’t need a silver lining; they need a whole new playbook,” Yang adds.

Cut a deal – or let the cuts take effect?
In the poll, 52 percent of respondents say the sequester cuts are a bad idea, versus just 21 percent who say they’re a good deal.

What’s more, 51 percent believe that the budget negotiations between Obama and congressional Republicans make them feel less confident about the economy, which is unchanged from when this question was first asked in last month’s poll.

Just 16 percent say the negotiations make them more confident about the economy.

But a combined 53 percent prefer that Congress move ahead with the current sequester cuts or a plan that contains even more cuts. Thirty-seven percent want a plan with fewer cuts.

And in a separate question, exactly half of respondents say that Obama and congressional Republicans should work together to avoid the sequester cuts from taking place, while 46 percent believe the cuts – while not perfect – should go into effect.

But the NBC/WSJ pollsters caution that all of these numbers could change if these sequester cuts take place and are as dire as critics say. “A month from now, we might find a very different dynamic at play,” Yang says. “When you feel [these cuts], that’s a different story.”

Obama’s brief honeymoon – but growing support for his top priorities
In addition to the budget debate, the poll shows that Obama’s rise in the polls – after his re-election, his inaugural speech and his State of the Union address – has ended for now.

His overall approval rating stands at a healthy 50 percent, but that’s down two points since January and three points since December. 

The percentage approving of the president’s handling of the economy has dropped five points, from 49 percent last month to 44 percent now.

And just 32 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction – down three points since January.

“The poll points to significant vulnerabilities for the president” heading in next year’s midterm elections, says McInturff, the GOP pollster. 

Alex Wong / Getty Images

President Barack Obama waves during a visit to Newport News Shipbuilding Feb. 26 in Newport News, Va.

Democratic pollster Yang adds: “The transition from campaigning to governing hasn’t brightened the public’s mood.”

That said, strong majorities support the broad outlines of Obama’s top domestic priorities – on immigration, gun control and raising the minimum wage. 

Fifty-four percent favor giving undocumented immigrants the ability to apply for legal status, which is up two points from last month’s NBC/WSJ poll. 

Also, 61 percent believe the laws covering the sale of firearms should be stricter, which is up five points since January.

And nearly six in 10 support Obama’s proposal from his State of the Union address to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.00.

Asked which of Obama’s proposals Republicans in Congress should offer a helping hand, 36 percent answer eliminating tax loopholes for the wealthy; 28 percent say expanding background checks for guns; 23 percent cite making preschool available for every child; 17 percent say giving illegal immigrants a path to legal status; and 11 percent say addressing climate change and global warming.

GOP’s poor standing with the public
While Obama has seen his poll numbers drop – albeit within the survey’s margin of error – his political standing remains significantly stronger than Republicans’.

Only 29 percent of respondents say they agree “with most” of what Republicans in Congress have proposed (versus 45 percent for Obama and 40 percent for congressional Democrats). 

An identical 29 percent have a favorable view of the Republican Party (compared with 49 percent for Obama and 41 percent for the Democratic Party).

And the public believes the GOP is more interested in partisanship than Obama is: 48 percent say Obama is pursuing a path on unifying the country in a bipartisan way, while 43 percent say he's taking a partisan approach that doesn't unify the country.

By comparison, 64 percent say Republicans are taking a partisan approach, versus 22 percent who say it's focused on unity.

What’s more, the polls shows the Democratic Party beats the Republican Party on almost every issue – looking out for middle class (by 22 points), Medicare (by 18 points), health care (16 points), reducing gun violence (15 points), Social Security (14 points), immigration (7 points) and even taxes (3 points) and the economy (2 points).

The only issues where the GOP holds the advantage in the survey are reducing the federal deficit (by 6 points), controlling government spending (16 points) and ensuring a strong national defense (26 points). 

The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Feb. 21-24 of 1,000 adults (including 300 cell phone-only respondents), and it has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.