The House on Tuesday defeated the first four amendments to a $60.8 billion GOP budget cutting bill, as lawmakers set up a showdown today over cuts to a major military project.
"This budget is not sustainable," said Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), who said Republicans need to start the process of cutting federal spending now, not waiting another year.
"This is an important first step to show the American people that the Congress is serious about cutting spending," Turner added.
The first amendment offered to the bill was a bid to cut $18.75 million from the Pentagon account that funds a series of military boards - spending that Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to cut.
But that didn't matter, as Republicans joined with Democrats to defeat the plan from Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), again demonstrating that often the talk around Capitol Hill about budget cutting is just that, talk.
Today, we'll get a real indicator of how lawmakers really feel about spending - especially those newly elected members of Congress - when the House votes on cutting out a duplicate engine that's being built for the Joint Strike Fighter.
Secretary Gates has opposed the extra engine for a number of years, arguing it is a waste of money. But for lawmakers whose districts would benefit, it's a question of jobs.
Last year with Democrats in charge, the House voted 231-193 to defeat a similar effort to knock out money for the extra engine. Will that change today? We'll see.
Debate stretched late into Tuesday night on the bill, as members moved from Defense amendments into other parts of the stop-gap budget, which will certainly bring votes on other budget cutting efforts today as well.
One of those votes will be on another amendment by Rep. Flake, to cut $34 million from the National Drug Intelligence Center, which is located in the Justice Department.
Looming over the House debate was a veto threat from the White House, which made clear that President Obama does not support adding billions in budget cuts to the Continuing Resolution.
"However, the Administration does not support deep cuts that will undermine our ability to out-educate, out-build, and out-innovate the rest of the world," a statement from the White House read.
It raised new questions about whether any of these cuts will even make it though the Senate, let alone to the President's desk.
Meanwhile, over in the Senate, the push for budget cuts wasn't going far, as Senate Democrats rejected an effort by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Republicans to roll back the FAA budget to its 2008 levels, a cut of over $2 billion.
The final tally was 47-51 against the budget cut - all 47 Republicans voted for lower budget funding levels, and all Democrats voted 'No.'
It was yet another reminder that it is much easier to talk about deficit reduction than to get it through the House or Senate.
The House on Tuesday defeated the first four amendments to a $60.8 billion GOP budget cutting bill, as lawmakers set up a showdown today over cuts to a major military project. "This budget is not sustainable," said Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), who said Republicans need to start the process of ...
