House GOP to endorse pre-Obama spending levels
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans controlling the House are putting members on record in favor of cutting the day-to-day budgets for domestic Cabinet agencies back to the levels in place before President Barack Obama won the White House.
Today's vote comes on a nonbinding resolution that promises cuts approaching 20 percent of the budgets for agencies like the Education and Commerce departments when Congress wraps up the long-overdue budget for the current fiscal year.
The White House warns that such cuts would mean furloughs of tens of thousands of federal workers.
"The time to exercise our power of the purse with discipline and restraint is long overdue," said Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif. "We must return to pre-bailout, pre-binge levels of funding for the federal government."
The actual GOP cuts would be made in a follow-up spending bill slated to advance next month and are sure to encounter strong resistance from the Democratic-controlled Senate and from Obama.