By Heidi Przybyla

Bloomberg Businessweek

Sept. 26, 2011

Graham’s comments mark the start of what’s likely to be a bipartisan effort to dismantle the automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs scheduled to take effect in 2013 if Congress doesn’t enact a deficit-cutting plan, said Steve Bell, a senior director at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington and a former longtime Senate Budget Committee aide.

The threat of $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts is designed to force the six Democrats and six Republicans into an agreement by inflicting mutual political pain on Republicans, who champion Pentagon spending, and Democrats, who tend to promote domestic programs like education and infrastructure.

“It’s the beginning of the unraveling,” Bell said. “These cuts were becoming so Draconian a lot of people thought they’d never happen.”

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Economic Policy Project