US Budget Cuts Would Be Harmful To National Security, White House Report Says

US budget cuts due to a sequestration plan scheduled to take place would have an adverse impact on national security, a new report from the White House Office of Management and Budget out Friday warns.

The report on the effects of US budget cuts to military spending comes at a time when Americans are concerned due to rising anti-US sentiment overseas and attacks on American embassies in Libya and Egypt, resulting in the deaths of four Americans, including one ambassador.

The new 394-page report from the White House to Congress delivered Friday details the impact of across-the-board cuts mandated by the Sequestration Transparency Act, part of the deal struck last year during the height of the debt ceiling crisis, a political showdown that resulted in the downgrade of America’s triple-A credit rating by credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

The report on the effect of US budget cuts read in part:

“Under the assumptions required for this report about the level of discretionary appropriations for FY 2013 and without additional changes to direct spending, this report’s calculations show a sequestration of 9.4 percent for defense function discretionary appropriations and 10 percent for defense funding direct spending … The corresponding sequestration percentages for the non-defense function would be a reduction of 8.2 percent for discretionary appropriations and 7.6 percent for direct spending.”

The report on US budget cuts to defense states that regardless of how the cuts are handled, the effect on national security is unavoidable:

“As the administration has made clear, no amount of planning can mitigate the effect of these cuts. Sequestration is a blunt and indiscriminate instrument. It is not the responsible way for our nation to achieve deficit reduction.”

Per the New York Times, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said of the budget cuts that it is the “American people who will pay the price for Republican intransigence.”