Obama signs order for government spending cuts after talks fail

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Washington, Mar h 2 (Xinhua-ANI): U.S. President Barack Obama has signed an order to start the 85 billion U.S. dollars across-the-board government spending cuts, the White House said on Friday night.

The White House officially initiated the spending cuts on Friday after U.S. lawmakers failed to reach a replacement plan.

At a press conference held earlier Friday, Obama said that the across-the-board government spending cuts were “dumb” but the nation will survive it. Obama placed blame squarely on Republicans over the failure to reach a plan to stop the spending cuts from beginning to take effect

Roughly 85 billion U.S. dollars of spending cuts were set to hit various governmental departments this year starting on Friday, as agreed by Democrats and Republicans in January to resolve the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

The across-the-board automatic government spending cuts, or “sequester” in U.S. government budget language, were included in the August 2011 debt-ceiling package to force lawmakers to come up with a long-term deficit reduction plan. (Xinhua-ANI)