House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters on Thursday it's up to Senate Democrats to see if they can pass legislation to replace the sequester with other spending cuts.
"The sequester, I don't like it," he said. "No one should like it. But the sequester is there because the president insisted that it be there. Where's the president's plan to replace the sequester that he insisted upon?"
The Senate bill would forestall the cuts through Dec. 31 and substitute about $110 billion in deficit savings over the coming decade. Almost $1 trillion worth of cuts over the coming eight years would remain in place.
But Republicans oppose the measure because it contains a 10-year, $54 billion tax increase that would require people with million-dollar incomes to pay at least a 30 percent income tax.
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Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.
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