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| Sequester blame game continues as government shutdown looms - CBS News Posted: 02 Mar 2013 09:21 AM PST President Obama on Saturday called for a "caucus of common sense" to step forward and stop the sequester, which began cutting $85 billion of federal spending out of the economy on Friday. "I know there are Republicans in Congress who would rather see tax loopholes closed than let these cuts go through," he said in his weekly address. "And I know there are Democrats who'd rather do smart entitlement reform than let these cuts go through. There's a caucus of common sense. And I'm going to keep reaching out to them to fix this for good." The deadline to avoid the across the board cuts outright came and went on Friday evening, as Mr. Obama officially signed the sequester into effect. Both parties blamed each other for the failure to secure a deal before the deadline, and the finger-pointing continued Saturday. The sequester "took effect because President Obama and Senate Democrats failed to act," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. and a member of House GOP leadership, said in the Republicans' weekly address. "In the last year, the House of Representatives has passed two proposals to replace the president's sequester with smarter spending cuts," but that the president's desire to "continue singling Americans out for tax increases" prevented Democrats from passing a "responsible plan to replace" the sequester. "The president must stop using this debate as an excuse to raise taxes," she said, "and start seizing this opportunity to cut spending." Mr. Obama, for his part, pinned the blame squarely on Republican obstinacy, accusing the GOP of protecting tax loopholes for the rich at the expense of middle-class families. "None of this is necessary," the president said. "It's happening because Republicans in Congress chose this outcome over closing a single wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit. Just this week, they decided that protecting special-interest tax breaks for the well-off and well-connected is more important than protecting our military and middle-class families from these cuts." And "while not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away," Mr. Obama said, "the pain will be real." Instead of submitting to the "perpetual partisanship and brinksmanship," the president suggested, "we can and must replace these cuts with a balanced approach" that combines targeted spending cuts with entitlement reform and closes tax loopholes. "This is America," he said, "and in America, we don't careen from one manufactured crisis to another. We make smart choices." Bipartisan leaders from the House and Senate met with President Obama at the White House Friday to continue negotiations before he officially signed the cuts into effect. No agreement emerged, but both parties forged on, already looking ahead to the next fiscal fight. A temporary budgetary measure funding the government expires March 27, and if the parties cannot reach an agreement on continued funding by then, the government will shut down. Despite the potential for another bout of budgetary drama, the president and House Speaker John Boehner each signaled after their meeting on Friday that a government shutdown looks unlikely. "With respect to the budget and keeping the government open," Mr. Obama said, "what's called the continuing resolution, which is essentially just an extension of last year's budget into this year's budget to make sure those basic government functions continue - I think that's the right thing to do to make sure that we don't have a government shutdown. And that's preventable." Boehner said, "The House is going to move a continuing resolution next week to fund the government past March 27th, and I'm hopeful that we won't have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown while we're dealing with the sequester at the same time. The House will act next week, and I hope the Senate will follow suit." |
| Growth of Sinkhole That Devoured Florida Man Threatens More Destruction - New York Times Posted: 02 Mar 2013 09:17 AM PST By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSPublished: March 2, 2013SEFFNER, Fla. (AP) — Engineers worked gingerly on Saturday to find out more about a slowly growing sinkhole that had swallowed a Florida man in his bedroom, believing the entire house could succumb to the unstable ground. Jeff Bush, 37, was in his bedroom on Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but escaped unharmed. Mr. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued by a sheriff's deputy. Engineers returned to the property on Saturday morning to do more tests after taking soil samples and running tests there all day Friday. They said the entire lot was dangerous, and no one was allowed in the house. "I cannot tell you why it has not collapsed yet," said Bill Bracken, the owner of an engineering company called to assess the sinkhole. He described the earth below as a "very large, very fluid mass." "This is not your typical sinkhole," said Michael Merrill, the Hillsborough County administrator. "This is a chasm. For that reason, we're being very deliberate." The hole had grown to 20 feet deep and 30 feet wide by Friday night, and officials said it was still expanding and "seriously unstable." Officials delicately addressed another sad reality: Mr. Bush was likely dead, and the family wanted his body. "They would like us to go in quickly and locate Mr. Bush," Mr. Merrill said. Two neighboring houses were evacuated, and officials were considering further evacuations. Members of the media were moved from a lawn across the street to a safer area a few hundred feet away. "This is a very complex situation," said the Hillsborough County fire chief, Ron Rogers. "It's continuing to evolve, and the ground is continuing to collapse." Sinkholes are so common in Florida that the state requires home insurers to provide coverage against the danger. While some cars, homes and other buildings have been devoured, it is extremely rare for a sinkhole to swallow a person. Florida is highly prone to sinkholes because of the underground prevalence of limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, creating caverns. "You can almost envision a piece of Swiss cheese," Taylor Yarkosky, a sinkhole expert from Brooksville, Fla., said while gesturing to the ground and the sky-blue house where the earth opened in Seffner. "Any house in Florida could be in that same situation." A sinkhole near Orlando grew to 400 feet across in 1981 and devoured five cars, most of two businesses, a three-bedroom house and the deep end of an Olympic-size swimming pool. More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in Hillsborough County alone since the government started keeping track in 1954, according to the state's environmental agency. The sinkhole that swallowed Mr. Bush caused the home's concrete floor to cave in around 11 p.m. Thursday as everyone in the Tampa-area house was turning in for the night. It gave way with a loud crash that sounded like a car hitting the house and brought Mr. Bush's brother, Jeremy, running. Jeremy Bush said he had jumped into the hole but could not see his brother before the ground crumbled around him. A sheriff's deputy reached out and pulled him to safety. "The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn't care — I wanted to save my brother," Jeremy Bush said through tears Friday in a neighbor's yard. "But I just couldn't do nothing." |
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