Obama signed the legislation into law Tuesday. | REUTERS Obama's hand forced on sequester

President Barack Obama — with a big nudge from Congress — is about to get much more specific about a touchy topic in the heat of his reelection campaign.

Legislation Obama signed into law Tuesday will force him to detail early next month how he’d make the first phase of $1.2 trillion in spending cuts across the federal budget, from defense to education to the environment.


Sure, Obama gets to spare the likes of Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and Pell Grants.

But everything else could get whacked by the $109 billion in cuts set to begin in January, absent a last-minute deal with a divided Congress. The automatic reductions are a consequence of the congressional supercommittee’s failure last year to reach a deficit-slashing deal.

( Also on POLITICO: OMB to work on sequestration issues)

The stakes couldn’t be higher: Combined with the January expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, the first year of automatic reductions could send the country back into recession, economists warn. Companies could begin scaling back their employment rolls once they learn the precise nature of the planned cuts from the Obama report.

And there’s no way to whack the budget without making somebody mad. Longtime Democratic allies are trying to protect cherished domestic programs. Republicans — and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta — are warning that national security programs are in peril, and the GOP is already highlighting the potential loss of military jobs in battlegrounds such as Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire and Virginia.

“It’s going to be a hell of a Labor Day,” said Jim Dyer, a former GOP staff director to the House Appropriations Committee, estimating the date the White House Office of Management and Budget will issue its report that details programs and projects targeted for cuts on Jan. 2, 2013. “You put specifics out there, and each cut is a story unto itself. It’s an unenviable position to be in.”

That’s precisely why many Republicans are urging Mitt Romney to avoid specifics on which programs he’d slash as the campaign season heads into its final stretch.

“Why would you want to go out on a limb and say, ‘I’m for this and this and this specific thing?’” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “You ought to do like [Ronald] Reagan did, if you want to be president of the United States, have a few big things and talk about them.”

For their part, White House officials don’t sound worried about releasing details of spending cuts, noting those can be skirted — if Republicans make concessions on taxes.

“Congress must act to avoid these devastating cuts & ask wealthiest to pay fair share,” White House deputy press secretary Amy Brundage wrote Tuesday on Twitter in announcing the president’s signature on the law.

But among Democratic lawmakers, fears are mounting over the impact of the spending cuts. Congressional Democrats lined up behind the bill that requires the Obama report, which passed nearly unanimously last month in the House and by voice vote in the Senate. The Office of Management and Budget has 30 days to issue the report now that Obama has signed the bill into law.

Republicans, who had been hammering the Obama administration for months to detail the potential defense cuts, won Democratic support after they agreed to include in the bill provisions requiring the White House also to spell out how it would implement the domestic program cuts.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who supported the Senate’s version, said she hopes the report will pressure both parties to cut a last-minute deal that includes new revenues for the government.

“I think we all need to step back,” Murray told POLITICO. “Sequestration was never written into law to be enacted. It was written into the bill last August in order to force both sides to the table. Nobody should be saying it’s going to happen, but what we all ought to be saying is how do we get to a balanced approach so it doesn’t go into effect.”

“I think what the president’s report will do will add to that, of why we should not go to sequestration and why we need a balanced, fair approach,” she added.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Obama and the GOP would each benefit politically if they cut an election-year deal that would create more certainty in the economy and at the Pentagon.

“I think this whole issue is going to impact the campaign,” said Graham, citing the prospective layoff notices from companies that rely on federal spending. “I will work with him to solve it. … He gets the benefit from solving the problem, so do we.”

Graham — who is touring swing states with Republican Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and John McCain of Arizona warning about the impending defense cuts — said the OMB report would be the first big step toward cutting a deal.

Striking a compromise in an election year is no easy task. Graham, McCain and Ayotte have floated the possibility of raising some revenues by ending certain tax deductions, but many Republicans are steadfastly opposed to the idea. And the trio is also calling for a deal that includes some cuts to entitlements such as Medicare, an idea that causes the Democratic base to recoil.

“The sooner we get a detailed description of what comes the way of the country — the Defense Department and non-defense — the better off the country is,” Graham said.

Obama aides also would prefer that they don’t get to the sequester.

Testifying last week to the House Armed Services Committee, OMB Director Jeffrey Zients said “no amount of planning” would mitigate what “by design, is bad policy.”

“The right course is not to spend time moving around rocks at the bottom of a cliff to make for a less painful landing,” he said. “The right course is to avoid driving off the cliff altogether.”

But Obama officials have started planning, just in case. Zients sent out a memo last week telling federal agencies to begin discussions on what’s next if they get hit with the cuts — and some departments are already assembling their plans.

“The entire administration will be prepared,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters last month.

Sequestration amounts to a “meat ax” and “doomsday mechanism” by requiring about $55 billion in Defense Department cuts in the first year, Panetta has said repeatedly. Pentagon officials predict hiring freezes, furloughs, less training for U.S. troops in Afghanistan and even the potential for denial of medical services to veterans.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, officials estimated a potential 7.8 percent budget cut would mean fewer research grants at the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, plus reductions in Head Start, child care and AIDS programs. HHS detailed the spending reductions in a letter sent last month to Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

Education Department Secretary Arne Duncan told a Senate panel last month that sequestration would also put more than 15,000 jobs at risk for teachers and teacher aides who work with low-income students. Schools serving military families could face “immediate cuts,” while special education programs can expect about $900 million less in their accounts, meaning layoffs of more than 10,000 teachers, teacher aides and other staffers.

Contractors who process student loans also could be chopped.

“The sequestration will put at risk all that we’ve accomplished in education and weaken programs that help children, serve families, send young people and adults to college and make the middle-class American dream possible,” Duncan said.

Some Republicans say Romney could benefit politically if he explains how he would begin to rein in big deficits.

“I hope he can be as specific as possible,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said of Romney.

Both campaigns are girding for the issue to become central to the debate this fall. Romney’s camp argues that Obama is “responsible” for the defense cuts. Obama’s team says it’s Romney’s “refusal” to agree to higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans that has hampered a deal with Republicans in Congress.

“It’s a very difficult political situation,” said John Scofield, a former House Appropriations Committee GOP staffer. He said the OMB report “should crystallize some of the harsh realities of sequestration which until now has only been referred to in big round numbers and percentages” but that the specifics are “not what you want to be doing a few weeks out from an election.”

Democrats counter that the OMB report will help show who is serious about dealing with the nation’s fiscal problems.

“For my two cents, I think helping the public understand the impact of sequestration could be a big plus for Obama,” said Scott Lilly, former Democratic staff director for the House Appropriations Committee. “There is little question that he and [House Speaker John] Boehner were forced to accept this by the more extreme elements of the Republican Conference and detailing what they would cut and how it would affect people’s daily lives helps voters understand the choice they face in November.”

Absent more details from the Obama administration, advocates for a wide range of other domestic programs fret over the impact of the cuts, especially on critical posts such as air traffic controllers, park rangers, prison guards and Border Patrol agents. They aren’t expecting to fare well against well-funded defense lobbyists.

“Until we know what it looks like, we’re just going to assume they’ll let the rats die in the labs and we’re going to take the cops off the beat,” said Scott Slesinger, the legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council who anticipates about a 12 percent cut at EPA, taking the agency to about $7.4 billion.

Projections are mixed for how sharp the spending cuts will be for non-defense discretionary spending. The Congressional Budget Office anticipates those government departments will see a 7.8 percent reduction across the board. The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the cuts at 8.4 percent, while the Bipartisan Policy Center predicts the cuts could be as high as 9 percent.

Former White House chief of staff Bill Daley said the sequestration report would show how “Washington is broken.” But he said Obama shouldn’t be concerned with the political fallout of getting into specifics.

“I don’t think it’s going to be earth-shattering,” Daley told POLITICO. “It’ll make it more real. But I don’t know if it’s going to make people who were on one side jump to the other.”

Others are more skeptical, fearing everyone loses politically once the cuts are detailed for the public to see.

“That was the point of this,” said Jacque Chevalier, senior policy strategist for the National Parent Teacher Association. “The prospect of across-the-board cuts was so toxic that nobody would take it. And I think Congress and the administration lost that gamble. I don’t think there’s any way to massage it.”