Travellers could face delays at major US
airports if mandatory government spending cuts take effect next week,
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood warned Friday.
His comments came as the White House pressures Congress to replace
the cuts with less severe deficit reduction measures.
President Barack Obama has warned that the cuts due to take effect
on March 1 would have dire effects on the US economy.
LaHood's warnings were meant to "wake up members of Congress on
the Republican side so they come to the table and we don't have this
calamity on air travel," he said.
The Obama administration has pointed to the impact of the cuts on
everything from military readiness to early childhood education.
Air traffic controllers would be forced to take unpaid leave,
reducing capacity for planes to take off at major airports, LaHood
said.
This would cause delays of up to 90 minutes for takeoffs beginning
in April, LaHood said. Air control towers would also face closure at
smaller airports, he said.
The so-called sequester, a package of automatic budget cuts passed
in August 2011, was intended to pressure lawmakers to forge 10-year
deficit reductions worth 1.2 trillion dollars.
The across-the-board cuts were initially scheduled to go into
effect on January 1, but were shelved for two months as part of a
deal that included tax hikes on the wealthy.
The White House has sought further delays to win more time to come
to a broader deficit reduction deal.
Some Republicans have indicated that, despite their concerns about
large defence cuts, they were open to allowing them to reduce what
they see as other wasteful spending.
Speaker John Boehner, who leads the Republican-controlled House of
Representatives, this week called the sequester "bad policy" and
accused Obama of not being serious about finding other cuts to
replace it and instead focussing on tax hikes.
