President Barack Obama on Friday blamed congressional Republicans for the failure to strike a deal on the sequestration and predicted a deep economic impact as a result.
Obama spoke at the White House following his first face-to-face meeting with congressional leaders about the cuts, which did not produce a deal.
"It is absolutely true that this is not going to precipitate the crisis" that would have been caused by not raising the debt ceiling or going over the fiscal cliff, Obama said, "but people are going to be hurt. The economy will not grow as quickly as it would have. Unemployment will not go down as quickly as it would have. And there are lives behind that. And it's real."
Obama repeatedly referred to the support he claims for his position in public polls and knocked House Speaker John Boehner's inability to overcome the "politics within the Republican Party" or connect with what he referred to as a silent "caucus of common sense" on Capitol Hill.
"What I can't do is force Congress to do the right thing," Obama said. "The American people may have the capacity to do that. And in the absence of a decision on the part of the speaker of the House and others to put middle class families ahead of whatever political imperative he might have right now, we're going to have these cuts in place."
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