U.S. Lawmakers Push for Solution

In less than two weeks until mass spending cuts take effect nationwide, President Obama says it’s up to lawmakers to compromise. Tuesday in Columbia, republican Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler and Senator Roy Blunt say that compromise isn’t easy.Both Hartzler and Blunt are saying the problem is the Senate and the House both have different ideas of what needs to happen. They say lawmakers in the House believe in spending cuts, but senators don’t want to slash what they consider essential programs. Many democrats say the wealthiest Americans need to pay more in taxes. The Missouri representatives now predict congress won’t be able to stop or even delay the across-the-board cuts.Both Vicky Hartzler and Roy Blunt tell ABC 17 News they’re doing all they can to make sure there is a balanced budget this year. They say if that doesn’t happen the country will be living crisis to crisis. Blunt says there is only one way to actually prevent the across-the-board cuts.”The president to propose other spending cuts or to accept other spending cuts I think the sequestered amount of money will be withheld and I think it starts March 1,” Blunt says.Hartzler also says people need to start preparing for cuts. She says the goal now is to minimize the impact.”The House has already put forth plans to replace the sequestration cuts with more approved cuts that are going to make government more efficient and more effective,” Hartzler explains.But the problem is that idea would have to pass the Senate too. Hartzler and Blunt both support an amendment to the constitution to balance the budget, but there hasn’t been enough support to get it passed before. They say right now, it’s time to compromise.”We need both a balanced approach to get us back to a balanced budget in this country, and so we need to get serious about reforming programs and making government more efficient and more effective,” Hartzler says.”When you got divided government, you have to have enough fingerprints on any difficult solution that neither political party can blame the other side for the next 20 years, and so I’m willing to do what I can,” Blunt tells us.Hartzler also says cutting wasteful government programs would be a good place to start solving the budget problems.