On Tuesday, the House began consideration of a 7-month continuing resolution, which would fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2011. When compared to the President's request, the CR will decrease discretionary spending by $99.6 billion. This is a good start and we are happy to see the numbers moving in the right direction, but these cuts still do not fully meet the requirements House Republicans laid out in their Pledge to America because they contain $19 billion in security cuts that are not part of the Pledge.
Fortunately, the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) will offer an amendment to cut an additional $20 billion in spending. These cuts would bring non-security discretionary spending down to the fiscal year 2008 level, $378 billion. The amendment would achieve the additional cuts by a 5.5% across-the board cut of all non-security discretionary spending and an 11% across-the-board cut for the Legislative Branch.
A quick reminder about the Pledge:
Shifting through the budget parlance, it's clear the $100 billion figure was derived from the policy of cutting non-security (i.e., not veterans or troops) spending back to the enacted FY2008 levels (i.e., pre-stimulus, pre-bailout). As we've pointed out before:
The difference between the proposed FY11 level ($478 billion) and the enacted FY08 level ($378 billion) of the 9 non-security appropriations subcommittees, EXCLUDING the 3 security appropriations subcommittees (defense, homeland security, and military construction/VA), is $100 billion.
Heritage Action for America strongly supports efforts to cut an additional $20 billion from the continuing resolution, which would bring the measure fully in compliance with the Republican's Pledge.