House GOP seeks more cuts

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Pushed by rebellious conservatives, House Republican leaders scrambled Wednesday night to find deeper cuts, officials said, hours after laying out a plan to save $35 billion by eliminating at least 60 federal programs and cutting back hundreds of others.

Republican officials said one possibility was to add across-the-board cuts to supplement the targeted reductions spelled out earlier in the day at a closed-door meeting for the rank- and-file.

The original plan targeting education and the environment, food safety and law enforcement presents a blunt challenge to President Barack Obama.

It calls for eliminating a high-speed rail program the administration has ticketed for a multibillion-dollar expansion and recommends ending federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, familyplanning services and AmeriCorps.

The government’s principal nutrition program for pregnant women would be cut 6 percent below last year’s level.

The proposal marks an initial attempt by newly empowered Republicans to cut spending and reduce the size of the federal government. Yet it sets the stage for weeks of political combat as Democrats seek to blunt the cuts while tea-party-backed conservatives demand more of them.

Republicans are “keeping our pledge to the American people that we will cut spending,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said after details were outlined for the rank-and-file at a closed-door meeting.

Preliminary details of the plan emerged just before Obama hosted Boehner and his two top lieutenants at a White House lunch.