GOP unveils next round of cuts
Doubling down their bets, House Republicans announced a new round of appropriations cuts in an accelerated push to reduce government spending by $60 billion and deny President Barack Obama close to $100 billion requested in his 2011 budget.The nearly 360-page, seven-month funding resolution was filed Friday night by the House Appropriations Committee in anticipation of floor action and passage before lawmakers go home for the Presidents’ Day recess next weekend.
The speed and depth of the new reductions take the GOP well past the recommendations of a bipartisan debt commission in December and all but invite a fight with Senate Democrats, even as government funding is due to expire March 4.
It’s a one-two punch spelled out dramatically by the sequencing of cuts this week to meet ever larger targets driven by the Republicans’ tea party faction.
Community development block grants, which had been cut about $530 million on Wednesday, ended down by $2 billion more to settle at $1.5 billion – well below even what was allowed under Ronald Reagan’s administration. The Peace Corps, which had lost $40 million Wednesday, finished down $70 million Friday—a better than 17 percent reduction from its 2010 budget.
Most dramatic, perhaps, was the shift at the expense of Pell Grants for low income college students, a top priority for the administration. The Appropriations leadership appeared to be making a real effort to protect it earlier this week. But the bill filed Friday night saves billions by forcing an $800 cut in the maximum annual grant for a student.
Altogether labor, health and education programs face a $17.4 billion reduction from 2010 funding. Another $15.4 billion would come from housing and transportation programs.
The impact on foreign aid would be severe, raising questions about the State Department’ ability to sustain its increased role in post-war Iraq as well as Afghanistan.
Since last Oct. 1, agencies have operated under a series of continuing resolutions or CRs, which set a rate of annual spending near $1.087 trillion. The new bill now would essentially take over for the last seven months of the fiscal year, providing $8 billion in new money for defense but dramatically slowing the pace of spending for domestic programs and foreign aid.
The $60 billion cut effectively doubles the $32 billion reduction outlined by the GOP leadership only last week and would bring total discretionary spending for 2011 down to $1.028 trillion. By comparison, the debt commission—worried by the weak recovery—never went so deep and chose a more gradual path which bottoms out over two years at $1.043 trillion in 2013, after which annual growth would be capped at half the rate of inflation.
But of all the numbers, the most magic politically is the $100 billion cut measured against Obama’s 2011 budget—an outdated standard but one that great currency with tea party freshmen elected in November.
When initially conceived last summer as a Republican campaign pledge, the reduction was to come from only domestic spending and foreign aid. But to make its task easier, the leadership agreed this week to count close to $18 billion in savings from Obama’s requests for previously exempted departments like Defense and Homeland Security.
Nonetheless, that left about $24 billion in new cuts required from domestic and foreign aid appropriations, already hit hard by a first round of cuts earlier this week.
Sixteen years ago, when Republicans took over the House in 1995, there was a similar attempt to force then President Bill Clinton to accept deep cuts. But that package of rescissions — about $25 billion in current dollars—was less than half the size of this attempt and ended up watered down after a veto fight with the White House.
With the tea party movement and a $1.5 trillion deficit staring Republicans in the face, the momentum behind cutting spending is far greater today. But there are serious splits in the party over how far and fast to go, and allies of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) now worry that the GOP may have lost its best chance to strike a wedge early between Senate Democrats.
Some short term extension past March 4 will almost certainly be needed to avert a government shutdown, but that means little relief for the Pentagon, boxed in by what’s largely a domestic spending fight and left unable to access billions in new funding both parties agree is needed for this year.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has grown increasingly impatient with the situation. To ramp up the pressure on Congress, there have been warnings of two week furloughs among civilian workers responsible for Navy flight test schedules, for example. And if the House and Senate can’t reach agreement, defense-minded Republicans could split with their leaders and demand that the military budget move on its own.
In their initial comments Friday night, Republican leaders seemed to brace themselves for criticism.
“These are not easy cuts, but we are finally doing what every other American has to do in their households and their businesses, and that’s to begin a path of living within our means,” said Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). And Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), who had favored a more cautious incremental approach, conceded “I know many people will not be happy with everything we’ve proposed in this package. That’s understandable and not unexpected.”
“But I believe,” Rogers added, “these reductions are necessary to show that we are serious about returning our nation to a sustainable financial path.”
Responding for the Democrats, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) picked up the same theme but said the great flaw in the GOP’s budget strategy is that its “path” is too narrow and ignores too much of the larger budget.
“The House Republicans are committed to pursuing an ineffective approach to deficit reduction that attempts to balance the budget on the back of domestic discretionary investments.” Inouye said. “Such an approach would knock the legs out from under our nascent economic recovery, kill jobs, and do virtually nothing to address the long-term fiscal crisis facing our country.”
“Try as they might to convince the American people otherwise, it is simply not possible to balance the budget by targeting 15 percent of federal spending - no matter how deep the cuts are.”
“Any serious solution to our looming debt crisis must include a look at the entire federal budget; not just a disproportionate focus on non-defense discretionary spending,” said Washington Rep. Norm Dicks, the ranking Democrat on House Appropriations. Dicks singled of a $1.1 billion, or 14 percent, cut in the Head Start program as especially egregious and an $88 million cut from 2010 funding for Food Safety and Inspection Services.
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