Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood urged members of Congress to work together in order to avoid the broad automatic spending cuts, known as the sequester, slated to take place Friday.
"We're not making this up in order to put pain on the American people," LaHood said. "We are required to cut a billion dollars and we are going to do that unless Congress gets together and works together and compromises on this." He added that there is still time to solve the problem this week.
Republicans have been critical of President Obama's handling of the sequester. Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) challenged the president to "stop the campaigning" and "stop sending out your cabinet secretaries to scare the American people."
Democratic Governor Deval Patrick, an ally of the president, defended Mr. Obama saying the president did not create the sequester, something that has been up for debate in light of Bob Woodward's reporting in the Washington Post. Instead, Patrick suggested that the President has not had an equal negotiating partner from the beginning.
"From the very beginning, remember, it was the leadership of the Republicans in the Senate who said that their number one agenda was to make the president a one-term president." He added that now, "their number one agenda is to slow down the recovery of our economy."
You can watch the entire program on our website including a lively discussion on the roundtable about the economic impact of sequester with CNBC's dynamic duo of Maria Bartiromo and Jim Cramer.
We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.
