Passed @ 4:40AM ET
U.S. House Votes to Cut $61 Billion in Government Spending Reduction Bill 235-189
3 GOP NO Votes: Flake(AZ), Campbell(CA), Jones(NC)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...abs%3Dcomments
WASHINGTON—The U.S. House of Representatives early Saturday approved a bill that would cut at least $61 billion from this year's spending levels, following an unusually freewheeling debate over the past several days on the House floor.
The legislation now goes to the Senate, where Democratic leaders have made it clear they view the House cuts as extreme, saying they want to keep spending at the current levels. The two sides will have to reach an agreement in order to avoid a federal government shutdown.
A flashpoint will come on March 4, when the temporary spending measure currently funding the government expires. Because the parties are unlikely to reach a deal by then, Congress will likely need to pass a short-term funding extension, and the two parties are already wrangling over the shape of that extension.
The House bill, with sweeping cuts across a wide swath of the government, is the opening shot in a battle over spending and debt that is likely to consume Congress the rest of the year. It also reflects the new power of the tea party movement and the 87 Republican House freshmen, who are determined to aggressively push spending cuts.
"We're going to do everything that we can to cut spending," House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said this week. "We're hopeful the Senate will take up the House passed bill We hope they will move it. But our goal here is to cut spending."
Democratic senators have made it clear there will be a battle over the level of spending cuts.
"Clearly there are going to be cuts," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), the chairman of the Senate budget committee. "Many of us believe the House goes too far. So there's going to have to be a negotiation to reach a responsible conclusion."
The specter of a potential government shutdown, if the two sides cannot reach an agreement, has hung over the debate. Democrats accuse Republicans of being willing to accept a closure, which they believe would be unpopular, if they don't get major spending cuts. Republican leaders have said a government closure is not their goal, accusing Democrats of trying to inflame the issue.
The House debate was an experiment of sorts by Boehner, who took power saying he wanted to run a more open House and allow input from rank-and-file members. The result has been a week-long debate on the spending measure that included several late-night sessions and hundreds of amendments.
Some of the amendments bore little direct relationship to the spending bill, as members seized the opportunity to make favorite points on a range of topics by stating that no money in the legislation could be used to implement various Obama administration policies.
As a result, the bill became a broad Republican statement on the Obama agenda. The amendments ranged from repeated efforts to prevent implementation of the new health care law to several measures to clip the regulatory wings of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Language was attached scrapping seven different so-called "czar" advisory positions in the White House and Treasury Department. Funding would also be cut to the Federal Communications Commission, preventing it from implementing new "network neutrality" rules governing the flow of traffic over the Internet.
At the same time, Republicans blocked attempts by Democrats to boost funding at the Securities Exchange Commission to enable the agency to implement aspects of the Dodd-Frank financial sector overhaul. A measure that would have boosted the budget of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was also defeated.
Throughout the debate, coalitions and alliances shifted. Earlier in the week, freshman Republicans teamed up with liberal Democrats to cut Pentagon spending. And the Republicans splintered over how deeply to cut, as some party members joined Democrats to defeat an amendment that would have dismantled the National Labor Relations Board.
Among the most notable votes was the defeat of a proposal by conservatives to cut $22 billion in additional spending, which failed Friday as 92 Republicans joined all Democrats to reject the amendment in a 147-281 vote.
Amid the tumult of the week's debate, uncertainty grew about how Republican leaders will navigate the high-stakes spending and debt fights of the coming weeks. In previous years, Republican and Democratic leaders would negotiate deals, then enforce them on their rank-and-file members.
But Republicans leaders are showing little inclination, or perhaps ability, to enforce party unity on the large group of restless freshmen and other conservatives who feel empowered by last year's elections.
The two parties used the debate to begin shaping their narratives about the 112th Congress and how it has performed so far. Republicans say they are keeping their promises to voters by blocking the Obama agenda and cutting spending in unprecedented ways.
But Democrats say the Republican lawmakers are adopting extreme positions, slashing government in ways that will cost jobs and that go far beyond what voters signaled they wanted last November.
Write to Naftali Bendavid at naftali.bendavid@wsj.com and Corey Boles at corey.boles@dowjones.com
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Originally Posted by Austrian Econ Disciple
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