By Emelie Rutherford
House Republicans unveiled plans yesterday for a federal budget for the rest of the fiscal year that would leave Pentagon spending $13.2 billion below President Barack Obama’s request.
The reductions would be seen in a continuing resolution (CR) funding the government until the end of fiscal year 2011 on Sept. 30. The House is slated to debate that new CR in two weeks. A current short-term CR funding the government at FY ’10 levels is slated to expire March 4.
The House Budget Committee released yesterday an overall budget plan for the remainder of FY ’11 that would cut Obama’s budget request by $74 billion. Shortly after the budget panel’s announcement, the House Appropriations Committee (HAC), which will decide the details of those budget cuts, said it will scour Obama’s FY ’11 proposal.
The committees call for cutting $16 billion in security spending, which includes the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), military construction, and veterans’ affairs. HAC Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) spelled out the details of those cuts in a statement, which cites reductions of $13.2 billion for defense, $1.1 billion for DHS, and $1.3 billion for military construction veterans’ affairs.
“I am instructing each of the 12 appropriations subcommittees to produce specific, substantive and comprehensive spending cuts,” Rogers said. “We are going (to) go line by line to weed out and eliminate unnecessary, wasteful, or excess spending–and produce legislation that will represent the largest series of spending reductions in the history of Congress. These cuts will not be easy, they will be broad and deep, they will affect every congressional district, but they are necessary and long overdue.”
House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.) said last month he had been crafting a list of defense budget cuts. He at the time said “nothing’s off the table except whatever might have an adverse affect on the warfighter” (Defense Daily, Jan. 7).
The House Republicans’ proposed cut to security spending still would represent an increase of $8 billion in FY ’11 over FY ’10 levels.
If Congress continued to fund the federal government in FY ’11 through a CR with FY ’10 spending levels, it would spend $32 billion more than the plan the Republican-controlled House budget and appropriations panels endorsed yesterday. Some Democrats have favored continuing to fund the FY ’11 budget at FY ’10 levels.
Whether House Republicans, who began controlling the chamber last month, get their way remains to be seen. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) quickly criticized their proposal yesterday.