Democratic Reps. John Conyers (Mich.), Keith Ellison (Minn.), Alan Grayson (Fla.) and Raul Grijalva (Ariz.) will demand action on a one-sentence bill introduced by Conyers called the "Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013."

You can watch the press conference live at 12 p.m. EDT here or in this blog. 

As you may have heard, the Republicans' refusal to discontinue the hostage crisis around the sequester has led to the across-the-board budget cuts kicking in today. What you may not have heard is that the sequester actually increases the the public debt-to-GDP ratio, Andrew Fieldhouse of the Economic Policy Institute points out. 

Holding out for ransom demands in the form of benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Senate Republicans today again refused to surrender their hostages—the nation’s economy and working families who will be hurt by the upcoming Republican sequester.

Republicans led the charge to defeat a Democratic plan that would have eliminated the across-the-board sequestration budget cuts for the remainder of 2013, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated would cost 750,000 jobs.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council today called on Congress to repeal—not replace—the economically destructive budget cuts that Republicans in Congress are using as leverage to demand Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare benefit cuts. If the sequester is to be replaced, in whole or in part, the council called for closing tax loopholes for Wall Street and the wealthiest 2%, which would minimize harm to the economy.  

A new, non-partisan study by Thomas Hungerford of the non-partisan Congressional Research Service confirms that the explosion of income inequality over the past 15 years is fueled by rapidly rising income from capital gains and dividends. 

Paul Krugman has a pretty straightforward plan to deal with the sequester that’s due to hit March 1. The New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist says, “The right policy would be to forget about the whole thing.” 

He bases his proposal on what Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen said in her keynote address to the Trans-Atlantic Agenda for Shared Prosperity conference at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Fiscal austerity, such as the sequester and the latest doomsday alert from the Bowles-Simpson duo, is the enemy of real economic recovery. 

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) continues to lead the Republican charge to the March 1 deadline, when arbitrary, across-the-board sequestration cuts in everything from mental health services to public safety kick in. In a cynical drive to wring massive concessions in cuts from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Boehner and the Republicans are willing to inflict hardships on working families and bring disaster to the economy.

Detroit’s below freezing temperatures and gray winter skies didn’t deter a group of union and community activists from gathering downtown in front of a Chase Bank to build support to ensure that corporate special interests like Chase pay their fair share in taxes.

The morning action was just one of more than 100 events in a national day of action urging Congress to avert the $85 billion in arbitrary, across-the-board sequestration cuts in everything from mental health services to public safety scheduled to take effect March 1.

Another Republican-manufactured fiscal crisis is fast approaching and it threatens the fragile economic recovery with the automatic, across–the-board sequestration budget cuts scheduled to kick in on March 1. Republicans have indicated they will block any attempt to stop the sequester unless there are benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

But a majority of House Democrats late last week signed a House Progressive Caucus letter to President Obama opposing benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Don’t forget today is the National Call-In Day to tell Congress to stop another manufactured fiscal crisis that would put the fragile economic recovery in jeopardy and cost as many as 1 million of America's workers their jobs.

Call 888-659-9401 and tell your lawmakers:

• Protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from benefit cuts.
• Repeal the “sequester” and close loopholes for Wall Street and the wealthiest 2% of Americans instead

Your voice needs to be heard because the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts in sequestration are scheduled to kick in on March 1.