Congress legislators propose alternate spending cuts to sequestration . Defense Secretary Barack Obama says political partisanship threatens Afghanistan stability . Deficit reduction should focus on cutting government spending and must include savings from popular entitlement programs such as Social Security , Medicare and Medicaid , Boehner insisted on Wednesday . `` This is not a game . This is reality , '' Panetta says of reduced readiness . The across-the-board cuts will take effect the first days of 2013 unless GOP acts .
Congress legislators propose alternate spending cuts to sequestration . Defense Secretary Barack Obama says political partisanship threatens Afghanistan stability . `` This is not a game . This is reality , '' Panetta says of reduced readiness . The across-the-board cuts will take effect the first days of 2013 unless GOP acts .