Congressional aides have said one of the ideas to help avoid the “fiscal cliff” would be to replace the automatic cuts with more targeted savings of about $55 billion. Later in the year, other ways to cut the burgeoning deficit would be looked at.

But it would not solve the problem of how to handle the $400 billion in a range of tax breaks enacted in 2001 and 2003 that are to expire December 31.

Obama made the remark almost in passing as part of his response to criticism about his defense spending plans from Republican opponent Mitt Romney and charges that the sequestration was his administration’s idea in the first place.

“First of all, the sequester is not something that I’ve proposed,” he said. “It is something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen.”

(Reporting by Fred Barbash; Editing by Jackie Frank)