White House agrees to $6.5B more in budget cuts
WASHINGTON
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a participant in
Thursday's talks with Vice President Joe Biden and top
congressional leaders, said the Democratic plan is unacceptable and
indefensible. It falls far short of a House-passed GOP plan to
slash domestic agencies by 12 percent or more on average.
"The White House's proposal ... is to cut another $6 billion
and call it a day," McConnell said
In opening talks Thursday Biden offered Republicans a package of
mostly recycled budget cuts totaling $6.5 billion in response to
House legislation slashing domestic agency budgets back to levels
in place before President Barack Obama took office.
The White House cuts fell well short of what resurgent
Republicans are demanding but were seen by Democrats as an attempt
to meet Republicans in the middle.
"Democrats stand ready to meet the Republicans halfway on
this," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. "That
would be fair."
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye,
D-Hawaii, was set to release a detailed proposal based on the White
House offer in expectation of test votes in the chamber next week
designed to gauge support and demonstrate to House Republicans that
their plan can't make it through the Senate. Inouye's bill would
cut spending $7 billion below a hard "freeze" at 2010 levels --
and that's before domestic programs get cut further to pay for
budget increases eagerly sought by the Pentagon.
The Senate plan would still fall more than $50 billion short of
the cuts demanded by Republicans.
The combatants are involved in a dizzying numbers game that not
all of them seem able to explain clearly. Republicans say they've
cut $100 billion from Obama's budget requests for the ongoing
fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, but when Democrats use the same
measuring stick to claim more than $40 billion -- based on their
agreement to freeze spending right away -- GOP aides dismiss the
moves as embracing the status quo.
Democrats, for their part, claim as their own $4 billion in
savings from a GOP-drafted stopgap spending bill signed by Obama on
Wednesday. And the additional cuts proposed on Thursday carve
little new ground.
In fact, the administration's latest $6.5 billion spending cut
proposal contains lots of easy targets, like cutting accounts
lawmakers have heavily "earmarked" with back-home projects like
clean water funding, eliminating $500 million in grants to state
and local police departments and $425 million in Federal Emergency
Management Agency money for state and local governments for
homeland security and disaster preparedness.
The White House list also would cut $280 million for a new rail
tunnel under the Hudson River that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
has canceled, $275 million cut from a program subsidizing community
service jobs for low-income senior citizens and $500 million in
rescissions of unneeded money from a program providing food aid to
low-income pregnant women and children under the age of 5.
Republicans were mum after Thursday's meeting, deferring to
Biden.
"We had a good meeting, and the conversation will continue,"
the vice president said. Notably, his statement omitted
catchphrases that might have described the session as
"productive" or "making progress."
House Speaker John Boehner's spokesman, Brendan Buck, said
before the meeting that cuts of the magnitude suggested by the
White House were "little more than the status quo."
The talks, in Biden's private office just off the Senate floor,
marked the beginning of an attempt by the White House and top
lawmakers to agree on legislation to cut spending and avert a
partial government shutdown when current funding authority expires
on March 18.
Republicans, their ranks swelled by 87 freshmen, passed
legislation in the House calling for $61 billion in cuts, coupled
with prohibitions on federal regulations proposed to take effect on
several industries, along with a prohibition on giving taxpayer
money to Planned Parenthood, which provides contraception and
health care to millions of women and girls.
Money for food inspection, college aid, grants to local schools
and police and fire departments, clean water projects, job training
and housing subsidies also would be reduced.
The White House has threatened to veto the GOP measure, and
Democrats have attacked it as reckless.
In addition to Boehner and Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, D-Nev., attended the talks, as did Senate GOP leader Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky.