The White House championed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) plan to turn off the sequester for five months by offsetting it with war savings.
“We support Senator Reid’s effort to postpone the sequester temporarily to allow for time for Congress to adopt a balanced approach to get rid of the sequester and reduce the deficit,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday.
“Previous Paul Ryan have contained OCO savings in them, and the CBO counts OCO savings,” Carney said, referring to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s official scorekeeper. OCO referrs to overseas contingency operations fund.
“This would be a temporary solution, and we support it,” he said.
Republicans have dismissed the idea as a budget gimmick.
