GOP while blocking tax hikes looks to escape automatic defense cuts

WASHINGTON — As pessimism mounted this week over the ability of a bipartisan Congressional committee to agree on a deficit-reduction plan, lawmakers began taking steps to head off the large cuts in Pentagon spending that would automatically result from a failure of the panel.

Members of both parties and both chambers said they were increasingly fearful that the 12-member committee would be unable to bridge deep partisan chasms and find $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction as required under the law that raised the debt ceiling and created the committee in the summer.

As talks sputtered, one panel member publicly lamented that the process was not working, and the group was chastised by a bipartisan group of budget experts at a public hearing as failing to show progress. Several members of Congress, especially Republicans on the House and Senate armed services committees, are readying legislation that would undo the automatic across-the-board cuts totaling nearly $500 billion for military programs, or exchange them for cuts in other areas of the federal budget.

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Business as usual in Washington.