House Republicans seek $30b cut at agencies - The Boston Globe

"WASHINGTON — House Republicans want to slice more than $30 billion from agency budgets over the next several months, aiming to make good on their campaign pledge to return federal spending to 2008 levels.

The figure represents a sharp reduction from President Obama’s most recent budget request, and Democrats have dismissed the proposal as Draconian, arguing that cuts of that magnitude would harm critical government services.

Conservative Republicans, meanwhile, are demanding even bigger cuts, and are unlikely to be satisfied by the GOP spending plan released yesterday. House leaders vowed to press ahead nonetheless and to put a spending bill on the floor when lawmakers return to Washington on Feb. 14.

“Washington’s spending spree is over,’’ House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said in a statement. “As House Republicans pledged — and voted to affirm on the House floor last week — the spending limits will restore sanity to a broken budget process and return spending for domestic government agencies to prestimulus, prebailout levels.’’

Under rules adopted by the new GOP majority, Ryan has unilateral authority to set spending limits for the remainder of the fiscal year, which runs through Sept. 30. Though Obama submitted a budget request for fiscal 2011, Congress never adopted a spending blueprint, and the government is operating under a temporary resolution that expires March 4.

House Republicans are working on a new resolution to fund the government for the final seven months of the year. Leadership aides said they hope to push the new measure through the House and the Senate before the existing resolution expires. But the Senate remains under the control of Democrats, who are unlikely to accede to House demands on spending. If the two chambers cannot agree on a new spending resolution, lawmakers risk triggering a government shutdown.

As budget chairman, Ryan sets spending limits but does not decide where to cut. That task falls to the House Appropriations Committee. That committee’s chairman, Hal Rogers of Kentucky, released spending targets, with the heaviest cuts hitting transportation and housing, agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration, commerce, justice, science and financial services. Those cuts would be up to 17 percent over current levels.

House Republicans seek $30b cut at agencies - The Boston Globe: