ORLANDO, Fla. â€" With President Obama and Congressional Republicans making little progress toward reaching a budget deal, the nation’s union leaders on Wednesday began pushing a new proposal to prevent the automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration: immediately repeal the law that put them in place.
At the annual winter meeting of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s executive council, labor leaders - alarmed that large-scale cuts and layoffs would begin on Friday - abandoned their previous call for Congress to embrace a balanced approach toward rducing the deficit. Instead, the labor leaders said repealing the sequestration law was the best route to prevent what labor leaders fear will be disastrous cuts, potentially involving hundreds of thousands of layoffs, many of them unionized government workers at the federal, state and local levels.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O., a federation of 57 labor unions, has strongly backed Mr. Obama in his standoff with the Republicans. The labor federation has taken an approach diametrically opposed to the Republicans - it has said the $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction should be done totally by increasing taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. Having agreed to a tax increase on the wealthy in the last round of deficit talks, Republicans have said they want all deficit reduction now done through spending cuts.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. attacked the Republican approach, accusing Congressional Republicans of engaging in hostage-taking.
“Republicans in Congress once again are ! threatening to harm the economy unless Democrats agree to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits,†the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s executive council said in a unanimously backed statement. “We urge President Obama and members of Congress of both parties to reject te Republican ransom demands and disarm the hostage takers instead. Only then can we focus on the urgent challenge of fixing the economy, raising wages, investing in our people and putting America back to work.
The federation’s executive council then added: “The solution is to disarm the hostage-takers so they no longer can hold the economy hostage to get their way. Disarming the hostage takers means repealing ‘sequestration’ â€" not replacing it. Across-the-board cuts would increase unemployment and harm the economy, but so would replacement cuts of the same size.â€
Republican leaders say that budget cuts are needed to reduce a dangerously large deficit. They resist further tax increases on the grounds that they would slow economic growth and discourage job creation.
