House, Senate on diverging paths on agency budgets

June 18, 2013 @ 1:59 pm


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., accompanied by members of the GOP leadership, meet with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 18, 2013, following a Republican strategy session. From left are, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Sen. John Thune, R-S.D, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., McConnell, and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) | Zoom

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans controlling the House unveiled slashing cuts Tuesday to a program that helps localities build community development projects, while their rivals in the Democratic-led Senate proposed to restore GOP cuts to international food aid and nutrition help for pregnant women.

An Energy Department spending bill that would cut President Barack Obama's requests for renewable energy programs, meanwhile, began its advance through the House Appropriations Committee as the battling chambers continued to proceed down wildly divergent budget tracks.

Senate Democrats were pressing to restore deep cuts to domestic programs like education, housing, health research and a variety of other programs despite agency budget "caps" more than $90 billion below the $967 billion level set under current law.

At issue was Congress' nuts and bolts budget work _ the annual spending bills funding day-to-day agency operations _ but it was taking on the appearance of a slow-motion train wreck with the most likely result being even larger across-the-board cuts than were imposed earlier this year.

As long as Obama and congressional Republicans remain stalemated over the big-picture budget issues of taxes and curbing benefit programs like Medicare and food stamps, federal agencies remain stuck with deep, across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration. The calendar is working against reversing sequestration for the current budget year expiring on Sept. 30 and hope is fading for a budget deal that would stave off even deeper cuts this fall.

The current situation has evolved from the failure of Obama and Congress to follow up the hard-fought 2011 budget and debt deal, which created sequestration as a $1.2 trillion backstop if Congress and Obama failed to deliver alternative deficit cuts to replace it. Originally designed to be so punishing as to force the sides to an agreement, sequestration now has become a grim reality, squeezing the Pentagon by about 8 percent and cutting domestic agencies by about 5 percent.

"I would anticipate that we probably see the sequester happen a second time," Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said.

Unless Congress acts, sequestration will cap agency operating budgets at $967 billion next year, though so-called emergencies like overseas military operations and most disaster aid would add to that. House Republicans are sticking with the caps but cutting domestic programs even more deeply in order to channel resources to the Pentagon.

The result is measures like the $44 billion transportation and housing bill released Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee. The bill cuts the popular community development grant program, which funds projects like sidewalks, playgrounds and low-income housing rehabilitation, by $1.3 billion, to just $1.6 billion, the lowest level since the Ford administration in the 1970s.

The measure also cuts funding for so-called Section 8 housing vouchers, which is likely to mean that people won't be added to the program off of waiting lists that already can span many years. It eliminates funding for the Choice Neighborhoods program that seeks to revive struggling urban areas with public housing projects.

"This bill is an example of the current budgetary trade-offs facing our nation _ the need to make deep cuts to meet our fiscal constraints and address the deficit, while maintaining funding for important government programs and services" like housing, transportation infrastructure and air traffic control, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said. The bill would avoid layoffs or furloughs of air traffic controllers, Rogers said, and would make sure that everyone receiving a subsidized housing voucher will continue to receive one.

The measure would eliminate funding for high-speed rail projects and cut back capital projects for Amtrak from $952 million to $600 million.

It was a different picture in the Senate, where two subcommittees approved bipartisan bills funding the departments of Agriculture and the Veterans Affairs. The Senate's $21 billion agriculture measure is $1.4 billion more generous than the House measure, which allowed Appropriations agriculture subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., to restore House GOP cuts to the widely-backed Food for Peace program delivering U.S. food aid overseas. The panel also restored House cuts to the Women, Infants and Children program that feeds low-income mothers and their babies.

But some Republicans opposed the legislation because the panel drafted the bills at levels that ignore the current budget sequestration vise.

"It is the law and whether we like it or not I think we need to honor that," said Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind. "But these appropriations bills in the whole ... ignore the sequester."


(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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Comments (77)


  • Add A Comment

  • It's me! Ha ha! wrote...
    LONGWAYHOME!
    February 25, 2013 11:57 pm
    How is your drive to get me kicked off the boards going for you????????????
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Rangerhawk wrote...
    You can't fix stupid
    February 26, 2013 12:33 am
    And you can't change your vote after November. We made our poop sandwich and now we've got to eat it. Luckily for Libs, they get heat theirs up with green energy.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • bigdogina4x4 wrote...
    awsome!!!
    February 26, 2013 11:56 am
    that's my new favorite saying.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • SickofSeattleite wrote...
    Republicans are right! Cut spending alone!
    February 26, 2013 5:29 am
    Obama threatens jobs and security if he can't spend more and tax more....SO BE IT!
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • HPD 5-0 wrote...
    Owebama's latest...
    February 26, 2013 6:33 am
    "...could...might....maybe...possibly" THE SKY IS FALLNG!!!!!! Not. Only the stupid sheeple believe this.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • hnuh wrote...
    02-26-2013... 0bama warns...
    February 26, 2013 6:36 am
    Don't ever expect a leftist to learn anything he doesn't already know. Its like trying to teach a pig to sing, it frustrates you and annoys the pig. (that's why they shriek and scream so much when confronted with facts).
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • HPD 5-0 wrote...
    You forgot insult.
    February 26, 2013 6:40 am
    That's their fav.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • bigdogina4x4 wrote...
    I'm a conservative guy,
    February 26, 2013 11:53 am
    but I would be willing to listen to you liberal (CH and Longwayhome)folks, if you can explain how spending more than you take in is a good idea?, and presumably you won't be able to do that, so why the best answer is to increase taxes (we already pay alot)?
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • bigdogina4x4 wrote...
    Oh Yeah,
    February 26, 2013 11:58 am
    Obama did get his increase in revenue on December 31, 2012 - when Republicans compromised in good faith to avoid the fiscal cliff on Jan 1.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • HPD 5-0 wrote...
    Owebama rejects?????
    February 26, 2013 4:02 pm
    So Barry really doesn't want to compromise. Not surprising. Once a liar,always a liar. Barry Hans nor spewed an honest statement in over five yrs.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • longwayhome wrote...
    All I asked for
    February 27, 2013 7:30 pm
    From hpd and his butt buddy maplecrapforbrains was a reasonable solution to the stalemate between the Democrats and the republicans. What I got in return was not anything even reasonably intelligent, I almost wondered if I had wandered onto a special needs website for traumatized republican voters who haven't gotten over their huge loss. I have tried to be inoffensive, not using any of the language they seem to need to express themselves, being the illiterate republicans that they are. Get over it you guys, get used to being under Democratic control for at least 12 years, probably more if your party keeps stepping on their neckties.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • longwayhome wrote...
    Be gratefull
    February 27, 2013 7:59 pm
    I didn't include "its the moron boy" in your little group of disfunctional unemployed, illiterate republican neanderthals. He is in a class of his own. FUBAR.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }