President Obama begins the shortened week with remarks Tuesday morning urging action to avoid the automatic across-the-board budget cuts called the sequester. The remarks will come at at a 10:45 am event, which the White House says will include first responders whose jobs may be lost if the spending cuts are allowed to go forward, is the first White House effort in more than two weeks to publicly draw attention to the issue.

The cuts are scheduled to hit Friday, March 1 "if Congress fails to find a path forward on a balanced deficit reduction," the White House said. The reductions could spur the loss of thousands of jobs.