WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor yesterday blasted President Obama for acting like Chicken Little in the fight over deep federal spending cuts set to hit next week.
“President Obama has said that unless he gets a second tax hike . . . he will be forced to let criminals loose on the streets, the meat at your grocery store won’t be inspected, and emergency responders will be unable to do their jobs,” said Cantor (R-Va.).
But Cantor said the sky doesn’t have to fall.
“These are false choices,” he said, adding that Obama’s plan for more tax hikes on the rich isn’t the cure for runaway federal spending.
“Working families across this country deserve better than Washington taking more of their money, or threatening their jobs because we cannot make even the tiniest cuts to government spending,” said Cantor.
He called for instead slashing wasteful spending, such as Environmental Protection Agency grants to foreign countries that total $100 million over 10 years.
The standoff between Obama and Republicans held firm with just a week until the start of automatic across-the-board cuts, known as the sequester.
Obama and Congress created the sequester in 2011 to force a deal to reduce federal debt. It didn’t lead to a deal.
Obama has spent this week sounding the alarm about the sequester, which slices $85 billion this year and $1.2 trillion over a decade from the military and federal agencies.
“We’ll see hundreds of thousands of people on furlough, potentially losing their jobs. We’ll see mental-health services affected, Head Start slots taken away,” Obama said on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio show.
“My sense is that [Republicans’] basic view is that nothing is important enough to raise taxes on wealthy individuals or corporations,” he said.
The president also called Republican leaders — House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — to discuss the looming cuts, said the White House.
Americans overwhelmingly side with Obama in the sequester debate. About 76 percent favor Obama’s tax-hike plan, compared with just 19 percent backing the GOP position, a new USA Today/Pew Research poll found.
Republicans also will get more of the blame if the sequester cuts take effect, with 49 percent blaming Republicans and 31 percent blaming Obama, according to the poll.