Dozen lawmakers to tackle tough choices in budget cuts

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The nation’s bills are being paid, and Congress has bolted the hothouse of Washington, one debt-limit deadline beaten and another ahead for a dozen yet-to-be-named lawmakers.

They might want to hold off making Thanksgiving and Christmas plans.

For the six Republicans and six Democrats, the toughest-to-swallow items on the deficit-cutting menu await. This group, to be selected from the House and Senate in two weeks, must find at least $1.2 trillion in budget cuts by Thanksgiving, and Congress must approve them by year’s end — or take the blame for deep and broad spending cuts that would strike GOP priorities such as defense and Democratic favorites such as programs for the poor.

And then lawmakers would have to explain the cuts to their constituents — up close and personally, on the campaign trail next year.

Facing the select group are a lot of the same “peas” that a frustrated President Barack Obama suggested Congress eat earlier in the difficult debate. Then as now, Democrats insist on balancing tax revenues with spending cuts. Republicans say taxes are off the table. That alone is a recipe for the same sort of staring contest that kept the sides from agreeing to raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit until hours before the money was to run out Tuesday.

The new panel’s target is to find $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in budget cuts over the next decade, including interest savings. Congress will have until Christmas to vote on the recommendations.

As an incentive for Congress to act, failure to do so would trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts, affecting the Pentagon as well as domestic programs.

The agreement enacted Tuesday calls for $917 billion in discretionary spending to be cut over a decade from Cabinet-level agencies and the thousands of programs they administer.

The new committee will scour the so-called mandatory side of the budget — programs whose spending levels run on autopilot. They include Medicare and Medicaid, the government’s health care for seniors and the poor, as well as Social Security and veterans’ retirement benefits.