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| FILE - In this March 18, 2013 file photo, House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Senate pressed ahead Wednesday on a huge, bipartisan spending bill aimed at keeping the government running through September and ruling out the chance of a government shutdown later this month. The developments in the Senate come as the House resumed debate on the budget for next year and beyond. Republicans are pushing a plan that promises sharp cuts to federal health care programs and domestic agency operating budgets as the price for balancing the budget in a decade. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- The Senate approved legislation Wednesday to lock in $85 billion
in widely decried spending cuts aimed at restraining soaring federal
deficits - and to avoid a government shutdown just a week away.
President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats rejected a call to reopen
White House tours scrapped because of the tightened spending.
Federal
meat inspectors were spared furloughs, but more than 100 small and
medium air traffic facilities were left exposed to possible closure as
the two parties alternately clashed and cooperated over proposals to
take the edge off across-the-board spending cuts that took effect on
March 1.
Final House approval of the measure
is likely as early as Thursday. Obama's signature is a certainty,
meaning the cuts will remain in place at least through the end of the
budget year on Sept. 30 - even though he and lawmakers in both parties
have criticized them as random rather than targeted. Obama argued
strongly against them in campaign-style appearances, predicting painful
consequences, before they began taking effect, and Republicans objected
to impacts on Pentagon spending.
Without
changes, the $85 billion in cuts for the current year will swell to
nearly $1 trillion over a decade, enough to make at least a small dent
in economy-threatening federal deficits but requiring program cuts that
lawmakers in both parties say are unsustainable politically. As a
result, negotiations are possible later in the year to replace the
reductions with different savings.
The administration as well as Republicans picked and chose its spots in arguing for flexibility in this year's cuts.
"My
hope is that gets done," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said earlier
in the week of the effort to prevent layoffs among inspectors that
could disrupt the nation's food supply chain. "If it does not, come
mid-July we will furlough meat inspectors," he added, departing from the
administration's general position that flexibility should ease all the
cuts or none at all.
The final vote was 73-26,
with 51 Democrats, 20 Republicans and two independents in favor and 25
Republicans and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana opposed.
Political
considerations were on ample display in both houses as lawmakers
labored over measures relating to spending priorities, both for this
year and a decade into the future.
Rep. Mark
Mulvaney, R-S.C., said he had wanted the House to vote on Obama's own
budget, but he noted the president hadn't yet released one. `It's with
great regret ... that I'm not able to offer" a presidential budget for a
vote, he said. He added he had wanted to vote on a placeholder - "34
pages full of question marks" - but House rules prevented it.
Minority
Democrats advanced a plan that calls for $1 trillion in higher taxes,
$500 billion in spending cuts over a decade and a $200 billion economic
stimulus package. Republicans voted it down, 253-165.
They are expected to approve their own very different blueprint on Thursday.
It
calls for $4.6 trillion in spending cuts over a decade and no tax
increases, a combination that projects to a balanced budget in 10 years'
time. That spending plan would indeed be simply a blueprint, lacking
any actual control over federal spending.
The
issues were grittier in the Senate, where lawmakers grappled with the
immediate impact of across-the-board cuts on individual programs.
Sen.
Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a deficit hawk, said he wanted to reopen the White
House tours, shut down since earlier in the month. He said his proposal
would take about $8 million from the National Heritage Partnership
Program and apply it toward "opening up the tours at the White House,
opening up Yellowstone National Park and the rest of the national
parks."
White House press secretary Jay Carney
told reporters previously the decision the cancel the White House tours
was made by the Secret Service because "it would be, in their view,
impossible to staff those tours; that they would have to withdraw staff
from those tours in order to avoid more furloughs and overtime pay
cuts."
But in remarks on the Senate floor, Coburn said, "This is a Park Service issue, not a Secret Service issue."
Sen.
Jack Reed, D-R.I., said the funds involved in Coburn's amendment would
not go to the Secret Service, and as a result the tours "would not be
affected." He also said the Heritage program, a public-private
partnership, helps produce economic development and should not be cut.
The
vote was 54-45 against the proposal. Montana Sen. Max Baucus, whose
state borders on Yellowstone National Park, was the only Democrat to
vote with Republicans.
The Park Service has
announced some parks may open late to automobile traffic this spring
because budget cuts have reduced funds available to clear roads of
winter snow.
The overall legislation locks in
the $85 billion in spending cuts through the end of the budget year, yet
provides several departments and agencies with flexibility in coping
with them. It extends flexibility to the Pentagon, the departments of
Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Justice, State and Commerce and the
Food and Drug Administration.
But
bipartisanship has its limits, and in private negotiations Republicans
rejected Democratic attempts to provide flexibility for the rest of the
government.
That set off a scramble among lawmakers to round up support for changes on a case-by-case basis.
The
provision to prevent furloughs for federal meat inspectors had the
support of industry as well as from both sides of the political aisle
and cleared without a vote. It was supported by Sen. Mark Pryor of
Arkansas, a Democrat seeking re-election next year, and Sen. Roy Blunt
of Missouri, who quietly helped Democrats round up the votes they needed
to clear the legislation over a procedural hurdle.
The
effect was to transfer $55 million to the Agriculture Department's Food
Safety and Inspection Service from other accounts within the
department, including deferred maintenance.
"Without
this funding, every meat, poultry, and egg processing facility in the
country would be forced to shut down for up to two weeks," said Blunt.
"That means high food prices and less work for the hardworking Americans
who work in these facilities nationwide."
In
contrast to Blunt, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, opposed Democrats when
they sought to overcome procedural hurdles earlier in the week.
In
the days since, he repeatedly refused to let the bill advance unless he
was given a chance to cancel about $50 million in cuts aimed at
contract employees at more than 170 air traffic facilities around the
country. In the end, his amendment was jettisoned without a vote.
