GOP, Obama budget chief trade blame for sequestration cuts

The Hill reports:

Republican lawmakers and the Obama administration’s budget chief blamed one another for sequestration Wednesday as a top Pentagon official warned the automatic spending cuts would lead to an “unready, hollow” military force.

The hearing of the House Armed Services Committee had the air of a partisan fistfight, with Obama budget chief Jeffrey Zients and GOP lawmakers frequently talking over each other.

Zients, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), chided Republicans for not proposing realistic solutions to stop the sequester cuts.

“The root cause of the problem here is the Republican refusal to acknowledge that the top 2 percent have to pay their fair share,” Zients said, repeating a common Democratic argument that higher taxes on the wealthy are needed to replace sequestration.

No word yet on when Harvard University is going to pay their fair share.