Republicans on Thursday pushed through Congress a 2011 budget that makes historically large spending cuts in the final six months of the fiscal year, but they needed the votes of dozens of Democrats to offset a large faction of disgruntled GOP lawmakers who said the reductions fell far short of their campaign pledge to drastically slash federal spending. The House passed the measure 260-167. Fifty-nine Republicans opposed the compromise budget, many of them freshmen lawmakers sent to Congress with the help of the Tea Party, which advocates reduced federal spending and eliminating the nation’s massive deficit and debt. Democrats provided 81 votes for the bill, moving it to the Senate, where it passed 81-19.
Republicans who voted against the budget said the nearly $40 billion in cuts it includes is far short of the $61 billion in cuts approved earlier by the Republican-led House but defeated by the Democratically controlled Senate. GOP lawmakers also opposed the compromise worked out last week because it no longer included several social policy provisions they favored, including the defunding of President Obama’s health care reforms and Planned Parenthood.
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Republican opposition to the bill increased late Wednesday when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report showing the bill would reduce the year’s deficit by $352 million, a tiny fraction of the $38.5 billion Republicans promised the legislation would save this year. The discrepancy is in part because of a $5 billion increase in defense spending in the bill and cuts made to areas that don’t have an immediate affect on the deficit.
For some undecided Republicans, the CBO report pushed them firmly into the “no” column.
“What was supposed to be the largest spending cut since World War II is now whittled down to $352 million,” said Rep. Allen West, R-Fla. “That seems like nothing.”
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, blamed “confusion” over the CBO report for the last-minute angst among his rank and file.
Before the vote, Boehner took to the House floor with charts and graphs to make the case that the bill represents real cuts. In addition to reducing the deficit by $315 billion over the next decade, he said the bill amounts to $78.5 billion less than what President Obama requested for the fiscal 2011 budget.
“I think this bill sets up the stage for us to begin making the fundamental changes that need to be made to put our nation back on a path to prosperity,” Boehner said.
The bill is a bipartisan compromise struck last week by lawmakers and President Obama just in time to avert a government shutdown.
It calls for $1.04 trillion in spending through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. The bill slashes spending across most government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, which would lose 16 percent of its current budget. Transportation, plus Housing and Urban Development, would be reduced by 18 percent. The bill also cuts funding for programs for the poor, including emergency heating help, which would lose $390 million, and community health centers, which would be cut by $600 billion.
