The House Committee on the Budget held a hearing, “Replacing the Sequester,” on April 25. Daniel Werfel of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Susan Poling of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) were the two witnesses.

The hearing focused on alternatives to the round of across-the-board cuts, known as sequestration, that are mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) (see Memo, 1/6). The sequester would apply $1.2 trillion in cuts over a ten year period, with the cuts split between discretionary defense and non-defense spending.

Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Mr. Werfel agreed that sequestration is an undesirable outcome and that a plan should be achieved to reach the level of savings mandated by sequestration in a more targeted and nuanced manner. “Sequestration is a meat axe approach to deficit reduction that we should avoid,” said Mr. Van Hollen in his opening remarks.

Mr. Ryan recommended achieving the level of savings included in the House-passed budget resolution, which would reduce spending beyond the level required by the BCA, at the expense of domestic non-defense programs (see Memo, 3/30).

Mr. Werfel countered that the President’s budget request offers a “balanced” alternative to sequestration, and urged that Congress “come together and send the President a plan that he can sign.” The President has indicated that he will not support FY13 appropriations bills that achieve cuts at the level proposed in the House-passed budget.

“The sequester would be severely disruptive to normal government operations and will have far reaching consequences. The adverse impacts of the sequester cannot be substantially mitigated with advance planning and executive action,” said Mr. Werfel in his written testimony.

Representative James Lankford (R-OK) asked Ms. Poling whether programs administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) should be considered to be exempt from sequestration. Ms. Poling replied that GAO has been directed by Congress to determine whether or not VA programs should be exempted from the forthcoming round of cuts. Ms. Poling said that GAO is working with the VA and OMB and should release an opinion in the next few weeks. Earlier in the week, OMB had announced that VA programs are in fact considered by the Administration to be exempt from the sequester.

An archived webcast of the hearing will be available here.

All witness testimony is available here.