Smith, colleagues re-introduce Relief from Sequestration Act

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA) and five House Democrats on Monday reintroduced the Relief from Sequestration Act in an aim to end the across-the-board cuts imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act.

The new legislation is “designed to repeal the sequestration mechanism in its entirety” and “end the threat of automatic, draconian cuts to important national priorities,” according to a statement put out by Smith's office Tuesday.

The BCA was designed to help reduce the deficit. Setting spending caps for each year, the legislation stated that if the caps were not met, sequestration would be triggered, mandating across-the-board cuts. Sequestration was supposed to serve as a stick to push lawmakers into negotiating a deal that never came.

“This bill does not deny the fact that we need a comprehensive, long-term deficit reduction deal. We absolutely do,” Smith said in the statement. “This bill recognizes that discretionary spending accounts and the economy should no longer be held hostage by the threat of sequestration while Congress debates the larger revenue and mandatory spending changes that are fundamentally necessary.”

“We have a deficit problem that must be addressed, but we should not damage our economy and undermine national security in the process,” Smith continued.

Smith was joined by Reps. John Conyers (D-MI), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Suzan DelBene (D-WA) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).