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"This work, along with hundreds of thousands of jobs, are currently in jeopardy because of politics in Washington," the president told hundreds of shipbuilding workers. "These cuts are wrong. They're not smart. They are not fair. They are a self-inflicted wound that doesn't have to happen."

The private company that Mr. Obama visited, Newport News Shipbuilding, employs 21,000 people in Virginia and is the only builder of the Navy's nuclear-powered carriers. Before his brief remarks, Mr. Obama took a tour of the sprawling facility, where sections of the John Warner and the Illinois, two Virginia-class submarines, are also under construction.

Ahead of Mr. Obama's visit, Republicans questioned the dire warnings, accusing the president and his top aides of trying to scare Americans by overstating the potential impact of the automatic cuts. They mocked Mr. Obama's recent trips to discuss the budget cuts as nothing more than campaign-style events that will not help solve the nation's fiscal problems.

"If the president was truly serious about solving the debt and deficit, he would be in Washington, D.C., working on solutions," Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the No. 3 House Republican, said in a statement. "The fact is he has chosen political stunts over coming to terms with Washington's spending problem. We don't need another presidential road show, we need a leader who is working to solve the problem."

Joining Mr. Obama on board Air Force One for the brief flight from Washington was Representative Scott Rigell, a Republican from Virginia whose district includes Norfolk and parts of Newport News near the shipyard. He told reporters that he agreed with the president when it came to the need for tax increases to go along with spending cuts.

"I believe that a position that says we will reject a proposal if it has even a dollar increase in revenue, I don't think that's a wise position and I don't hold that value," Mr. Rigell said. "Revenue has to come up a bit, first by growing the economy, but also by tax reform, which also includes eliminating lobbyist-inspired, lobbyist-written loopholes. I am in favor of that."

He criticized the president for not laying out a detailed proposal, but said that both parties were to blame for the impasse that could lead to the across-the-board cuts.

"I think both parties are responsible for where we are now," Mr. Rigell said.

The president praised Mr. Rigell at the event, giving him credit for being willing to join Democrats in calling for the closing of tax loopholes rather than letting the automatic spending cuts happen.

"That's not always healthy for a Republican, being with me," Mr. Obama said.

The Navy has already signaled that the automatic budget cuts would delay the routine deployment of a second carrier to the Persian Gulf region. But the president focused mostly on the economic consequences of the budget cuts for the private companies that design, build and repair the nation's huge war-fighting infrastructure.

The president said the budget cuts due to take effect on Friday would severely affect companies that depend on the defense industry and their workers.

"Already, the uncertainty around these cuts is having an effect," Mr. Obama said. "Companies are starting to prepare for layoff notices. The longer these cuts are in place, the greater the damage."

The visit to the shipyard was part of a continuing effort by the Obama administration to dramatize the real-world impact of the budget cuts, which were enacted 18 months ago by both parties as a way of persuading lawmakers to compromise on less onerous ways of reducing the deficit.

That compromise appears elusive even as some Republicans say the indiscriminate nature of the across-the-board cuts will do harm to the nation's domestic and military programs.

On Monday, Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, warned that the nation's borders would be less secure if the cuts went into effect and said Americans would be inconvenienced by longer lines at airports. Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, said that access to the nation's park system would be scaled back if the budget cuts took place.

Administration officials say cuts to the Defense Department could be especially damaging. Leon E. Panetta, the departing secretary of defense, has repeatedly chided Congress for potentially allowing cuts that he said would reduce the nation's readiness to fight its enemies.

Though military officials acknowledge that there will be few visible impacts on the country's war-fighting ability immediately after the cuts begin, they say the damage would build over weeks and months as ground brigades scheduled to go to Afghanistan do not receive the training they need.

Military officials have said that within a year, it is possible that two-thirds of Army and Marine Corps ground combat brigades would not have been trained or equipped to merit a rating of full readiness. Likewise, Air Force and Navy pilots eventually may not be able to fly the required training hours for readiness certification.

"This is not a government shutdown," said George Little, the Pentagon press secretary. "But it will start the erosion of our military readiness, and we will soon see impacts to bases and installations around the world."

The Defense Department has already notified 800,000 civilian employees that they may be subject to temporary furloughs that would require them to take leaves without pay in the remaining seven months of the current budget year.

But Mr. Obama's trip to Newport News Shipbuilding was intended to draw attention to what officials say could be an even bigger impact — the loss of economic activity and jobs at private companies that do contract work for the military.

According to the company's Web site, it is the second-largest private employer in Virginia. The company, which has built nuclear-powered submarines and over 800 other military ships since it was formed in 1886, has revenues of $3.5 billion per year.

Pentagon officials say work at the company is threatened by budget delays and the prospect of the automatic cuts, known as the sequester. Already, an overhaul of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln has been delayed, and there is no money to complete an overhaul of the Theodore Roosevelt. Construction of the John F. Kennedy would be delayed by the automatic budget cuts, officials say.

If those delays continue, White House officials said it could cost thousands of jobs at the shipyard and at the many suppliers around the country who provide the raw materials to build the huge floating armada.