No proposals to roll back US spending cuts

US political leaders have failed to offer any tangible proposals for rolling back an automatic $US85 billion ($A83.7 billion) worth of spending cuts.

The White House and Republican congressional heads cast blame on each other on Sunday for the across-the-board cuts that took effect on Friday but gave little guidance on what to expect in the coming weeks.

Republicans and Democrats pledged to retroactively undo the massive reductions but signalled no hints as to how the process would start to take shape.

Republicans insisted there would be no new taxes and Democrats refused to talk about any bargain without them.

President Barack Obama and the Republicans have been fighting over federal spending since the opposition party regained control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections.

The sequester - the term used in Washington for the automatic spending cuts - was designed in 2011 to be so ruthless both sides would be forced to find a better deal but they haven't despite having two years to find a compromise.

The $US85 billion in savings apply to the remainder of the 2013 fiscal year, which ends on September 30. But without a deal government spending will continue to be slashed by about $US1 trillion more over a 10-year period.

The public posturing by both sides in interviews aired on Sunday's television news shows indicated the spending cuts are here to stay for the near future.

The Senate's Republican leader Mitch McConnell called them modest. Republican House Speaker John Boehner isn't sure they will hurt the economy. The White House's top economic adviser, Gene Sperling, says the pain isn't that bad right now.

McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, said on Sunday the first phase of the sequester that had just started to kick in was a step toward curing Washington of its "spending addiction".

"This modest reduction of 2.4 per cent in spending over the next six months is a little more than the average American experienced just two months ago, when their own pay went down when the payroll tax holiday expired," he said.

The payroll tax reduction was a temporary measure intended to stimulate the economy.

Boehner downplayed the dire warnings issued by Obama and Cabinet members about the impact of the spending cuts.

"I don't know whether it's going to hurt the economy or not," he said.

"I don't think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work."

The latest bickering comes ahead of the US's next major budget hurdle, with less than a month to negotiate a funding plan to avert a government shutdown after March 27.

If the parties can manage to, though, yet another fiscal fight looms. In May, Congress will confront a renewed standoff on increasing the government's borrowing limit - the same debt-ceiling issue that, two years ago, spawned the law forcing the current spending cuts in the first place.

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