On February 9th, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers announced a partial list of 70 spending cuts that will be included in an upcoming Continuing Resolution (CR) bill. The CR legislation will fund the federal government for the seven months remaining in the fiscal year and prevent a government wide shut-down, while significantly reducing the massive increases in discretionary spending enacted in the last several years by a Democrat majority. A full list of program cuts will be released when the bill is formally introduced.
The total spending cuts in the CR will exceed $74 billion, including $58 billion in non-security discretionary spending reductions. The statement by Chairman Rogers on these cuts follows:
“Never before has Congress undertaken a task of this magnitude. The cuts in this CR will represent the largest reduction in discretionary spending in the history of our nation.
“While making these cuts is hard, we have a unique opportunity to right our fiscal ship and begin to reduce our massive deficits and debt. We have taken a wire brush to the discretionary budget and scoured every program to find real savings that are responsible and justifiable to the American people.
“Make no mistake, these cuts are not low-hanging fruit. These cuts are real and will impact every District across the country – including my own. As I have often said, every dollar we cut has a constituency, an industry, an association, and individual citizens who will disagree with us. But with this CR, we will respond to the millions of Americans who have called on this Congress to rein in spending to help our economy grow and our businesses create jobs.”
A few of the Spending Cuts to be Included in the CR:
· Community Health Centers -$1.3B
· Maternal and Child Health Block Grants -$210M
· Family Planning -$327M
· CDC -$755M
· NIH -$1B
· Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services -$96M
· LIHEAP Contingency fund -$400M
· Community Services Block Grant -$405M
· HUD Community Development Fund -$530M
David Feaster, CARES Interim Co-Director, shares his view: “This is one proposal including cuts to vital social services that were considered for reducing the budget deficit. Politicians on both the Federal level, like this, and at the State Level like Michigan’s proposed House Bill 4022 are trying to let the citizens know that they are working on the budget and they are making very partisan political statements by showing what they believe to be expendable. It will be interesting to see how much of this ended up in the presidents brand new budget. This type of posturing is designed to get your attention, and it should! We should all be concerned about what organizations and services might be cut. Remember, you have a voice, use it. Let your representatives know how you feel…”
To see the complete list of proposed cuts, visit the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations webpage at http://appropriations.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=259
