Obama calls on Congress to pass short term fix to sequester

In this week's address, President Barack Obama urged Congress to avert the sequester -- if only for a temporary time -- by finding a mix of spending cuts and revenue raisers that would help to reduce the deficit. If Congress fails to act by March 1, tens of billions of dollars in spending cuts to domestic programs and defense will occur. Congress voted on these cuts and President Obama signed them into law as a way to push both parties to reach a consensus on budget reducing measures. Still, Congress has failed to find ways to reach a bipartisan agreement on how best to prevent these cuts, which economists have said would be devastating for the middle class and possibly put the country back into a recession. President Obama said in his weekly address that any agreement lawmakers reach should be balanced in a way that would allow investments in areas we need such as education and infrastructure and have cuts in areas we do not need.