Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said today he would support letting the sequester – $85 billion in automatic spending reductions – take effect on March 1 if Republicans do not agree to raise taxes, something they have absolutely ruled out after agreeing to a $600 billion tax increase as part of the fiscal-cliff deal.
“Until there’s some agreement on revenue, I think we should just go ahead with the sequester,” Reid told reporters following a meeting with Senate Democrats.
I wrote yesterday on why Democrats might, privately at least, welcome sequestration, which cuts defense without touching entitlement programs, as an acceptable outcome that, as Senator Ben Cardin (D., Md.) said in 2011, will not be “devastating to our priorities.”