House OKs $1 Trillion Budget Bill
Politico reports:
The House narrowly approved a stripped-down budget bill Wednesday evening, cutting nearly $46 billion from President Barack Obama’s requests in order to hold total government-wide appropriations to no more than the current $1.09 trillion level.
Unprecedented in its scope, the measure barely survived a 207-206 procedural vote when senior Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee suddenly broke ranks to protest Guantanamo-related language in the package. Party leaders, caught off-guard, seemed shaken but then steadied themselves, prevailing 212-206 with no Republican help and 35 Democratic defections.
Senate Democrats still hope to substitute a more detailed omnibus bill that would restore about $18 billion, chiefly for the departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security. But Obama’s costly $850 billion tax deal with Republicans might torpedo this effort. And the White House already appears to have stepped back, putting its chips on the House bill and thereby undercutting the president’s old colleague, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).
Indeed, the administration has spent the past week salting the House bill with extra money for the president’s priorities — within the context of an overall freeze. One of the final additions, for example, was $550 million for Obama’s Race to the Top education initiative — not funded in 2010. And a $624 million increase is provided for nuclear weapons programs important to the START treaty with Russia, a priority for the president.
Going forward, the $1.09 trillion total represents an important marker, because it matches the 2012 spending target recommended by the president’s deficit reduction commission. Obama must consider this in February, when he writes his own 2012 budget, and for the remainder of fiscal 2011 ending Sept. 30, the House bill gives him greater flexibility to manage the government with less.
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