US President Barack Obama has urged lawmakers to adopt smart government spending cuts to reduce economic uncertainty and bolster economic growth.
The uncertainty caused by the government spending cuts is already having an effect on US economy, Obama said in his remarks on Monday to the National Governors Association at the White House, reported Xinhua.
"As leaders, we share responsibility to do whatever we can to help grow our economy and create good middle-class jobs," Obama said. "Unfortunately, in just four days, Congress is poised to allow a series of arbitrary, automatic budget cuts to kick in that will slow our economy, eliminate good jobs, and leave a lot of folks who are already pretty thinly stretched scrambling to figure out what to do."
Roughly $85 billion of spending cuts were set to hit various governmental departments this year starting March 1, as agreed by Democrats and Republicans in January to avoid the "fiscal cliff".
The nation should reduce the deficit by getting rid of wasteful tax loopholes that benefit the well-off and the well-connected, Obama said.