House GOP Savings Plan Short of $100B Pledge
The House Budget Committee unveiled new spending caps today that they say would save at least $74 billion this fiscal year, but the savings are just $32 billion if measured against current spending.
Those savings are far short of the House Republican promise in their Pledge to America to save $100 billion dollars this year.
House Republicans are basing their numbers off of the president's budget, but that budget was never enacted by Congress. The GOP plan would bring actual spending down from $1.87 trillion this fiscal year to $1.55 trillion.
Chairman of the House Budget Committee Paul Ryan (R-WI) was given the power this year to set spending caps, but now the House Appropriations Committee will be tasked with finding programs to chop. Republicans have said that everything is on the table from cuts to education to the Department of Health and Human Services which is charged with implementing the new health care law. It is expected that details of the cuts will be unveiled late next week.
The current spending bill that's keeping the government and its programs operating expires March 4th. Congress must pass, and the President must sign, what's known as a Continuing Resolution by that day to avoid a government shutdown.
Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has said that the House will consider its spending measure the week of February 14th. They promise an open process where all members can introduce amendments to propose further cuts. It is expected that conservative members of the Republican Study Committee will introduce an amendment with far bigger cuts. Given the new Tea Party bent in the House, this amendment would have a good chance of passing.
The measure would then go to the Senate, however, where Democrats are still in control. They would likely drastically change the bill and send it back to the House. This ping-pong could continue until either the current continuing resolution expires and the government shuts down, or until the two chambers work out a compromise.
Republicans say their plan will reduce spending to 2008 levels, meaning before the bank and auto bailouts, for the remainder of the year. Ryan disputes the findings by CBS News, the Associated Press and other media outlets that the savings only amount to $32 billion.
Ryan tweeted this afternoon that the "Associated Press is wrong. House GOP plan would cut $74 billion from the Budget... and we're just getting started."
