In Today’s Times:
The so-called “sequester,†an $85 billion bundle of across-the-board spending cuts, appears likely to take effect March 1, as House Republicans refuse President Obama’s call for Congress to enact a package of tax increases and spending cuts to prevent the reductions, Jonathan Weisman reports. Operating on the premise that the sequester will remain in effect for what may be the rest of the year, the House Appropriations Committee is expected to propose yet another stopgap spending measure as soon as next week to keep the government operating through Sept. 30.
Economic forecasters expect the sequester to have a lighter impact on the economy than going over the so-called “fiscal cliff†would have had, but they still expect the cuts to slow economic growh in the next year and push unemployment higher. Binyamin Appelbaum and Annie Lowrey explain that there are other factors clouding the forecasts.
Balancing a desire to see John O. Brennan, the deputy national security adviser, confirmed as director of the Central Intelligence Agency while protecting the confidentiality of the Justice Department’s advice to the president, the White House is trying a strategy that it hopes will produce a bipartisan majority vote for Mr. Brennan on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti explain that the administration is willing to sacrifice the votes of some Democrats who are demanding full access to classified legal memos justifying the administration’s targeted killing program, making up for those votes by wooing Republicans and providing more information on the attack on an American dip! lomatic mission on Sept. 11 in Benghazi, Libya.
After some fits and starts, the two Senators from Arizona â€" John McCain and Jeff Flake, both Republicans â€" have returned to the fore of the contentious debate over immigration reform. Ashley Parker writes that the men, who have struggled with whether to focus on overhauling immigration laws or increasing border security, have joined a bipartisan group of eight lawmakers who hope to come up with a comprehensive plan by the end of March.
Raymond Hernandez and Sam Dolnick look at how Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, is fighting an ethics inquiry that threatens to strip him of the political power he has spent decades trying to build.
Former Representative Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. is awaiting sentening after he pleaded guilty on Wednesday to using campaign funds for personal expenses. Michael S. Schmidt details how court documents say Mr. Jackson used $750,000 from his campaign to finance his lavish lifestyle.
Happening in Washington:
Economic reports expected Thursday include weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m., followed at 10 a.m. by existing home sales for January and last month’s leading indicators.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will give the keynote speech at the Agricultural Outlook Forum, which begins at 8:30 a.m.
At 2:30 p.m., the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee! will hol! d a hearing on the impact of sequestration on the American economy, middle-class families, and small businesses.
