The White House and the Republicans in Congress are more than
$1.1 trillion apart over how much to devote to domestic
appropriations over the next 10 years.
Proposed Medicare changes have gotten more attention. But as
deficit talks resumed yesterday,appropriations remained the
sticking point given the immense gap between the two sides
and the more immediate impact on government services.
Since February, Obama has also conceded changes in his budget
and a new framework announced April 13th promised to build on
the 2011 cuts negotiated days before with Speaker Boehner. In
the month since, the administration has resisted providing
details, but after repeated inquiries, the Office of Management
and Budget this week confirmed th 10 year totals showing a net
reduction of about $720 billion from the prior requests.
The biggest difference is in security spending, chiefly for the
departments of defense, homeland security, state and veteran
affairs. Here the administration would cut about $530 billion
from its prior requests to settle at a level of about $7.5 trillion
over 10 years.
Nonsecurity-related domestic spending would be reduced by about
$190 billion to $4.05 trillion in budget authority over 10 years.
The combined cuts moves the president about halfway toward the
$10.7 trillion 10 year appropriations target set in the House-passed
Republican budget. Breaking down the totlas into security and
domestic components is more complicated because the two camps
use different DEFINITIONS of what constitutes security spending.
But on the domestic side of the ledger - the BIG TARGET of the
GOP - the equivalent House Republican target is about $1.1
trillion less than that of the White House. This requires a
further cut of close to 26%!!!!!
The Republicans clearly hope to use the debt ceilings talks
now to force further conscessions alon these lines but gaps
this huge will require the Senate GOP to assert itself more.
if there is to be a deal.
Sheila McKinney
