Congress Introduces Bills to Change Sequestration Triggers - December 6, 2011

With the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (or, super committee) to achieve $1.2 trillion in federal savings, sequestration of federal spending is set to begin in January 2013. The bulk of these cuts will occur in the defense budgets, which worries many republicans. With more than a year before these cuts are realized, lawmakers will try to amend the targets before the cuts go into effect. Already, Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY) has introduced legislation that would exempt Medicare from the pending cuts, and there is speculation that Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) is working to draft legislation that would roll back the sequestration cuts and instead expedite a vote on other budget reform measures.