Alexander: President failed to lead on spending cuts; ORNL, UPF should be shielded

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander on Thursday said the automatic federal spending cuts going into effect today demonstrate a failure of presidential leadership.

The senator also said he would like to minimize the impact of the cuts on important government institutions such as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, student loans, and the proposed Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 Security Complex.

Congress and the White House approved the automatic, across-the-board cuts in discretionary and defense spending— known as sequestration—about 18 months ago in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Considered unpalatable by many, the cuts were meant to encourage Democrats and Republicans to compromise on deficit reduction efforts.

That hasn’t worked.

A Tennessee Republican, Alexander said it’s a simple problem to resolve. All President Barack Obama has to do, Alexander said, is send Congress a spending plan for the next six months. It could become law in two weeks, said Alexander, who is on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“If this sequester goes into effect on Friday, as the law requires, it will be a complete failure of presidential leadership and ought to be a grave embarrassment to President Obama,” Alexander said during a Thursday teleconference with reporters. “If he spent one-tenth of the time working on a plan to change the sequester that he has campaigning around the country using scare tactics, we’d have the problem resolved.”

Alexander said the federal government needs to reduce spending because of the huge national debt, but the impact on important government institutions, including ORNL and UPF, should be minimized. He said programs he would work to protect include a strong national defense, energy research, and Pell Grants for students.

“They might all have to take some reductions,” Alexander said.

In a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, who is also a Tennessee Republican, said the first seven months of the sequestration are the most “ham-handed.”

Still, Corker said, “The only thing worse than sequestration, in my opinion, would be kicking the can down the road on some much-needed fiscal discipline here in Washington.”

Corker and Alexander have introduced legislation that would reduce spending by about the same amount as the 10-year sequester—or roughly $1 trillion—through entitlement reforms instead.

“The biggest problem facing our country is automatic spending increases in our entitlement programs,” Alexander said.

Corker said entitlement spending and interest payments could be 90 percent of the federal budget in 10 years.

“We don’t have the courage in the United States Senate to deal with entitlements,” Corker said. “That’s a shame.”

Obama and a bipartisan group of congressional leaders met Friday to discuss the sequester, two months after Congress delayed it, but they failed to reach a deal to avoid the budget cuts, which are expected to total about $85 billion or less in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

Alexander said Obama has had 18 months to suggest an alternative approach.

“Instead of campaigning and waiting to schedule his first meeting with congressional leaders about the sequester until the day it goes into effect, the president should have been working with Congress,” Alexander said. “There’s no excuse for the delay and the theatrics and the lack of presidential leadership.”

In a news conference after the meeting, Obama said he would continue to make the case that Congress should replace the sequester, which the White House has called devastating, with alternative spending cuts and tax hikes on the wealthy, the Washington Post reported.

“We shouldn’t be making a series of dumb, arbitrary cuts to things that businesses depend on and workers depend on,” Obama said, according to the Post.

“We all agree that we shouldn’t be cutting these funds in the way that the sequester does,” Alexander said.

In East Tennessee, the sequester could result in up to $100 million in cuts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, depending upon how the cuts are allocated; reduced work weeks for many Y-12 employees; and $23 million in cuts at the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Corker said he hopes Congress works later this year to tackle “real entitlement reform, which is really where all the money is.”