Republicans to propose $26b in spending cuts

Washington: House Republican leaders, bowing to pressure from their colleagues, said they will seek another $26 billion (Dh95.48 billion) in government spending cuts this year.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, said his panel would boost the savings following complaints that the party had abandoned its campaign promise to cut spending by $100 billion.

"Our intent is to make deep but manageable cuts in nearly every area of the government, leaving no stone unturned and allowing no agency or programme to be held sacred," Rogers said in a statement. "We are continuing to work to complete this critical legislation."

He didn't say where the additional savings would come. Representative Norm Dicks of Washington, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the cuts would force agencies to furlough employees. "It's going to affect jobs — it has to," he said.

Revised plan

The revised plan will make it harder to reach agreement with Senate Democrats who were already balking at savings outlined yesterday by Rogers. That proposal would cut $74 billion from President Barack Obama budget request for this year, which amounts to $35 billion less than last year.

A $100 billion reduction in the president's request for fiscal 2011 would be about $60 billion less than last year's spending.

The cuts would be attached to a resolution to keep the government in business through September. Current spending authority expires March 4, and without agreement between the two chambers the government will shut down.

"Different factions of the House Republicans keep trying to outbid each other on spending cuts," said Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat.

"They are blindly swinging a meat axe to the budget," and "some of these House Republicans won't be satisfied with anything less than a shutdown of the government," he said.

Representative Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, called a government shutdown a "possibility, but we're going to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen."

House Republicans' "Pledge to America" during last year's campaign promised to reduce discretionary spending to 2008 "pre-stimulus" levels, saving $100 billion in the first year. Because the fiscal year began in October, Republicans said last month they would set spending at 2008 levels for just the final seven months and seek the rest of the $100 billion in savings later.

Study Committee

A group of fiscally conservative lawmakers known as the Republican Study Committee threatened to seek additional cuts to keep the $100 billion promise when the bill reaches the House floor next week. That threatened a potentially embarrassing intraparty dispute over how to cut the budget.