Spending bill bears Democratic stamp
Schumer idea steered compromise
DEALER: Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said, “You can’t balance the budget by cutting domestic discretionary spending alone.” (Bloomberg)
Flanked by fellow Republican Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and John Barrasso of Wyoming, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky speaks to reporters Tuesday. “The debate has turned from how much to grow government to how much to reduce it,” he said. (Associated Press)The final 2011 spending deal that Congress released Tuesday bears the fingerprints of Democrats far more than Republicans, whose effort to slash the federal deficit was swamped by President Obama’s tenacious defense of spending programs.
Chief among those fingerprints were those of Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who was the first major player to suggest shifting some cuts from discretionary spending to mandatory spending — a key decision that allowed the total dollar amount of cuts to grow, while not slashing the basic programs Democrats wanted to protect.
That has left all sides to claim victory: the GOP, because it earned $37.7 billion in cuts, which is more than half of its original $61 billion target, and Democrats because they blunted Republicans’ budget hatchet and blocked the deepest reductions, leaving base-line discretionary cuts of about $15 billion.
“A deal became possible once Republicans agreed to our idea of including reductions in mandatory programs,” Mr. Schumer said. “That’s what allowed the negotiators to reach the $38 billion number in total cuts. We will look to broaden the playing field even further in the spending debates to come so the sacrifice is shared across all parts of the budget. You can’t balance the budget by cutting domestic discretionary spending alone.”
The agreement that Democrats reached with House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, was released in full early Tuesday. It preserves the big-dollar education, environment, job-training and public broadcasting programs that the GOP had tried to ax.
“We fought for cuts, but they had to be smart cuts, cuts that would strengthen our economy instead of weakening it,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, told reporters Tuesday, referring to Friday night’s bipartisan budget agreement. (Associated Press)Gone are the major billion-dollar cuts to public housing, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the National Institutes of Health and job-training grants. All of those cuts were passed by the House, but the money was restored in the final deal.
The discretionary spending cuts that were left trim hundreds of programs, but the biggest single chunks come from savings that would have happened anyway: $6.5 billion in recapturing unspent money from previous years, and an additional $6.2 billion reduction in Census Bureau spending, which was artificially high last year because of the 2010 census.
That means actual discretionary base-line cuts come to about $15 billion, or less than a third of what House Republicans passed.
“It’s more than we’ve ever done, but when you look at what’s ahead and what we’re going to have to do, it’s pretty small,” said Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, a budget hawk who said he has not decided how he will vote, but said Republicans should have pushed harder on the front end.
“We should have gone in with $100 billion [in cuts]. You know you’re going to meet somewhere in the middle; then by golly, go in with a big number,” he said.
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