国际英语新闻:Obama says U.S. will survive "dumb" spending cuts

WASHINGTON, March 1 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that the across-the-board government spending cuts were "dumb" but the nation will survive the so-called "sequester."

The government spending cuts will hurt the economy, but the nation will get through it, Obama said at a hastily arranged press conference after a meeting with top U.S. lawmakers including House Speaker John Boehner.

"It's just dumb. And it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt individual people and it's going to hurt the economy over all," Obama told reporters after lawmakers failed to reach a replacement plan.

Obama placed blame squarely on Republicans over the failure to reach a plan to stop automatic spending cuts from beginning to take effect late in the day.

Roughly 85 billion U.S. dollars of spending cuts were set to hit various governmental departments this year starting on Friday, as agreed by Democrats and Republicans in January to resolve the so-called "fiscal cliff."

Republicans will not accept new tax increases to replace the sequester and solve the government's debt problem, something demanded by Democrats, Boehner told reporters after the meeting.

The across-the-board automatic government spending cuts, or " sequester" in U.S. government budget language, were included in the August 2011 debt-ceiling package to force lawmakers to come up with a long-term deficit reduction plan.