Last week, the Obama administration put out a “fact sheet” detailing the possible damage from sequestration, ranging from fewer FBI agents on the job to more homeless on the street.
Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., isn’t buying it.
“This is Chicken Little time,” Price, vice-chairman of the House Budget Committee, said today in an interview following an appearance at the National Press Club. “I think that’s the kind of demagoguery that we see when people aren’t interested in true spending reductions. They always put the worst thing out there that affects people’s gut.”
Price, who shared the podium with the budget committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, expects sequestration–which would cost agencies $85 billion in across-the-board budget cuts by the end of the fiscal year in September–to begin taking effect as scheduled in March. But he also expected Democrats to then “come to their senses” and help find a way out.
In a separate interview, Van Hollen stopped short of agreeing that sequestration will in fact happen, but said he found it “disheartening” that some House Republicans seem to want it to. If sequestration does kick in, however, Van Hollen predicted a concerted effort to “reverse and replace it” with something else.
