President Obama delivers remarks at the White House to urge action to avoid the automatic budget cuts scheduled to hit March 1, if Congress fails to find a path forward on balanced deficit reduction.
The President emphasized that he has offered what he called a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction. He called for tax reform and some additional spending cuts. The deadline for sequestration was pushed back at the beginning of the year after Congress agreed to let some of the Bush-era tax cuts expire.
He said the current Republican proposals "asked nothing" of the wealthy and big corporations. "It's wrong to ask the middle class to bear the full burden of deficit reduction," he said.