West Virginia’s First District Congressman says he’ll be working, in the coming weeks, to try to lessen the effects of sequestration, the automatic federal spending cuts that are starting to unfold now.
“It’s not the best thing, but it is what it is,” Republican Congressman David McKinley said. “It’s here.”
The sequestration is beginning with March after weeks of little movement on other ways to reduce spending without the sequester.
President Barack Obama did meet with leaders of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives at the White House on Friday, but there was not expected to be any last minute deal on a different plan.
The sequester is a 2.5% total federal spending reduction that touches everything from education to defense with no flexibility.
The cuts were locked in during deficit reduction talks in 2011 and were designed to be so unattractive that Congress and the White House would be forced to come up with another plan.
Up to now, there has been no such plan.
“No one expected that it would go to this extreme,” Congressman McKinley said on Friday’s MetroNews Talkline.
He says there will be some opportunities to amend the sequestration, especially when it comes to defense, to make the cuts in better ways. However, he says overall reductions are needed.
“As awkward as it is, it’s rough, it’s crude, it is a way to reduce spending, because we have to do it,” he said.