President Obama on the failure of the Select Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction to reach an agreement by their deadline.

Earlier on Monday, the co-chairs of the bipartisan, bicameral deficit reduction committee, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Patty Murray (D-WA), released a statement saying they would not reach a deal before their Wednesday deadline to propose at least $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts. President Obama responded to the deficit committee's announcement at the White House, telling reporters he'd veto any efforts to undo the automatic spending cuts that will now occur as a result of the committee's failure to act. If Congress takes no other action, those automatic across-the-board cuts ("sequestration") will occur staring in 2013, split 50-50 between defense and non-defense spending, including Medicare.  Excluded from those automatic cuts are Social Security and Medicaid. While both the House and the Senate have completed legislative business until the week after Thanksgiving, some members of the deficit committee stayed in Washington over the weekend to continue to work on a deal.