It’s the biggest task facing the new House Republican majority now settling into life in Washington: Making good on its promise to slash the federal budget and shrink the size of government. Top Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California have pledged to slim government down to 2008 budget levels, a strategy that's been called "back-to-Bush." In early January, Boehner told reporters, "On September 24, we made clear in the [Pledge to America] that we want to go back to 2008 spending levels...There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it."
Problem is, no one knows where exactly House Republicans plan to apply the scalpel. It's not clear they themselves know where they’ll cut. The "Pledge to America" only calls for reductions to non-security discretionary programs; that means agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, and Defense Department would be exempt. The GOP's plan would cut non-security discretionary funding—the roughly one-third of government spending controlled by Congress, which excludes programs like Social Security and Medicare—by nearly 22 percent, shaving $105 billion off of President Obama’s $483 billion 2011 budget proposal.
Source: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/republican-budget-cut-middle-class
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