Budget Cuts’ Impact May Be Difficult to See Right Away

Late Friday night, Mr. Obama formally triggered spending cuts that will reach across the breadth of the federal government after he failed to persuade Congressional Republicans to replace them with a mix of cuts and tax increases.

In a 70-page report to Congress accompanying the order and detailing the reductions — agency by agency and program by program — Jeffrey D. Zients, Mr. Obama’s budget director, called them “deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments and core government functions.”

But even as the cuts become official, some of the immediate impact is difficult to see.

The process of trimming government budgets is slow and cumbersome, involving lengthy notifications to unions about temporary furloughs, reductions in overtime pay and cuts in grant financing to state and local programs. Less federal money will, over time, mean fewer government contracts with private companies. Reduced overtime for airport security checkpoint officers will make lines longer, eventually.

And so as the first weekend began for the new, slimmer government, little of that is evident yet.

Letters to governors, informing them of the smaller grants are beginning to go out, officials said. Shaun Donovan, the secretary of housing and urban development, wrote to Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio: “You can expect reductions totaling approximately $35 million,” helpfully putting the amount in a bold type.

The Air Force Thunderbirds — the elite team of F-16 pilots who perform tricks at air shows — announced on its Web site that all of its shows have been canceled starting April 1. The last show will be in Titusville, Fla., on March 23.

Still, it will take some time, officials acknowledged, before the cuts begin to make life more difficult for teachers, defense contractors, Head Start students, border patrol agents or others who rely on the largess of the federal government.

Emerging from an Oval Office meeting on Friday with the lawmakers, the president called the cuts “just dumb.” He said they would slow the economic recovery and spoke emotionally about their impact on people who would feel the consequences of government layoffs and disruptions in public services.

“I don’t anticipate a huge financial crisis, but people are going to be hurt,” Mr. Obama said during a 35-minute news conference at the White House, in which he acknowledged that his campaign of highlighting fallout from the cuts had failed to persuade Republicans to consider tax increases as part of a package to avert the $85 billion in reductions over the next seven months.

But the president and his Republican adversaries said they would not carry the fight over the cuts into a coming legislative effort to finance the government through Sept. 30, essentially declaring a cease-fire in the budget wars that have dominated Washington since 2011.

The showdown in December over the so-called fiscal cliff yielded $620 billion in tax increases over 10 years. The across-the-board spending cuts now going into force will cut deficits an additional $1.2 trillion.

Both sides indicated that for now, that may be enough — a fiscal peace through political exhaustion. The two parties are now expected to move to a broader argument over the right level of taxes and spending as they seek to develop a new budget for the coming year and beyond. Republicans said they welcomed a return to a more orderly budget process but warned they would not give in on their basic principles.

“I will not be part of any back-room deal, and I will absolutely not agree to increase taxes,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

After a public relations blitz lasting weeks that was aimed at stopping the cuts, Mr. Obama said he was prepared to extend a stopgap law that finances the government to March 27 if Republicans stuck to an agreement worked out in 2011 about the level of federal spending. The decision will most likely allow the across-the-board spending reductions to remain in place for months if not years.

White House officials and Senate Democrats had considered making one last stand around the March 27 deadline, declaring the Senate would not pass another government spending plan unless it undid the across-the-board cuts. But Senate Democrats were leery. The first furloughs are likely to hit in April, and the Democrats feared that little political pressure would have built on Republicans before the current stopgap spending law expired.

In his weekly address on Saturday morning, the president acknowledged that the reductions would not affect everyone equally.

“While not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away, the pain will be real,” Mr. Obama said. “Many middle-class families will have their lives disrupted in a significant way.”

And heading into the weekend, some officials seemed eager to offer reassurance that government would continue to function despite the deep cuts.

While Leon E. Panetta, who just left the job of defense secretary, had thundered about the critical risk to national security — and lamented what he viewed as a shift of Washington’s political class away from good governance — his successor, Chuck Hagel, spoke in more conciliatory terms.

Legal Etiquette for Difficult Situations

Michael P. Maslanka,managing partner of the Dallas office of Constangy, Brooks & Smith

Let's talk legal etiquette -- the real deal, though. No platitudes on returning phone calls promptly, promising to adhere to a budget or proclaiming knowledge of the client's business. No, let's talk about the hard stuff, which is more immediate, useful and hard-wired. Here, then, is an etiquette guide for the hopeful, the aspiring and the bewildered.

No. 1: How to reject business: I met with the CEO of a business in a creative industry. He wanted me to draft non-compete agreements for his employees. Sounds great, right? Solvent client, interesting work.

But then he said, "I don't know why I need a non-compete. My employees love me. Sure, I throw things at them, but it's the creative process." Stop the presses. My response: "Your problem requires immediate attention, and I am unable to do so now. There are many board certified labor and employment lawyers who can help you." (By the way, do not pawn someone like this off on a fellow lawyer.)

There is a saying among salespeople: The best sale you make is the sale you didn't make. That was all Zen to me until this meeting. Think about this when temptation next knocks.

No. 2: How to act as a businessperson: Why do lawyers often answer the knock on the door and take on business that we shouldn't? My answer: Each of us has a powerful need to be liked -- not Facebook "liked," but liked on a real and personal basis. For a lawyer, nothing says "I like you" as much as being hired to be a trusted adviser.

But this need to be liked, chosen and trusted should never override basic business sense. Back to the CEO with whom I met: If he throws things at his employees, how would he treat me and my staff? He would make unreasonable demands, suck up lots of time and then complain about the bill. Remember: It is easier to stay out than get out.

Lawyers' need to be liked undermines business sense in other ways. Very few attorneys relish sending out bills. But sometimes this means they let bills sit on their desks for months because they subconsciously believe that clients, when receiving bills, will like them less. Let me be direct: Such action (or inaction) is unethical because it puts attorneys' needs (to be loved) above clients' needs (accurate budgeting).

No. 3: How to do right when asked to do wrong: Let's move on to another client, whose deposition was slated. When we met in advance to prepare, he acknowledged engaging in inappropriate behavior toward a female subordinate.

Later, with one call, he put me in an ethical pickle: "Now that I think about it, she was the aggressor, not me. And it's her word against mine. It was all behind closed doors. That's how I plan to testify -- just a heads up." Thanks a lot.

Option No. 1: Be the ethics police, become outraged, tell him that perjury is wrong, get fired. He then goes to another lawyer and does not tell him the truth.

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