Friday marked the deadline for the federal government to figure out how to avoid cutting $85 billion from its budget over the next seven months and $1.2 trillion over the next decade, also called the sequester.

President Obama met with four Congressional leaders Friday morning; Republicans Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, and Democrats Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. 

The leaders met in a last ditch effort to avoid the automatic spending cuts put into law by the Budget Control Act.

From CNN: 

But [lawmakers] haven’t [comprised and avoided the cuts], and as lawmakers left Washington to begin their weekend on Thursday, so left any prospect of avoiding the cuts that President Barack Obama and his administration have warned will lead to long airport lines and fewer air traffic safety controllers; federal government furloughs and layoffs; cuts to food inspection and border security programs; and education funding decreases that will shut young students out of Head Start programs.

Following the meeting, Obama spoke with reporters and called the sequester a “series of dumb, arbitrary cuts to things that workers depend on, like education, research, infrastructure and defense."

The cuts would raise the debt ceiling and were signed by Obama in August 2011. Since then, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have failed to agree on an alternative budget plan. 

From Reuters: 

Democrats insist that the solution include bringing in additional revenue through closing what they call tax loopholes that largely benefit the wealthy and U.S. corporations. Republicans reject this approach.

"The discussion about revenue, in my view, is over. It's about taking on the spending problem," House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on leaving the meeting.

The president said the sequester was inexcusable, and the Republicans in the Congress voted to let the burden of deficit reduction fall on the middle class.

"What I'm suggesting is, I've put forward a plan that has serious spending cuts, serious entitlement reform... I've offered negotiations around that kind of balanced approach,” Obama said. “So far I've gotten rebuffed, because Republicans have said, not a dime [on taxes]."

In a statement Thursday, Obama said, “[On Thursday], Republicans in the Senate faced a choice about how to grow our economy and reduce our deficit. And 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.”

From CNN: 

The Obama administration has said the law gives them no leeway to spare one budget line at the expense of another, and insiders expect the cuts to be about 9 percent for nondefense programs and 13 percent for defense accounts.

What agencies do have some discretion over is how they roll out the cuts. In some cases, furloughs and other cuts could be backloaded, scheduling them to take effect at a greater rate later in the year in hopes that Congress will reach a deal to replace the sequester that has so far been elusive.

"Not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away,” Obama said to reporters. “The pain though will be real. Beginning this week, many middle class families will have their lives disrupted in significant ways.”

Obama is required to sign an order enacting the spending cuts by 11:59 p.m. Friday, CNN reported, and will do so privately. 

“We will get through this,” the president said. “This is not going to be an apocalypse.”

 

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage on budget cuts here.

Reach Executive Producer Agnus Dei Farrant here.