House nears vote to swing the budget ax

Won’t back down, Boehner says in bid to cut spending

— The House on Thursday edged closer to passing a bill to reduce government spending by at least $61 billion as the chamber’s Republican leader signaled he and his colleagues will take a hard line on the cuts in talks with Democrats.

Debate on the plan continued into the night after lawmakers voted earlier Thursday to reduce funding for the arts, block the administration’s “net neutrality” Internet regulations, cut funding for White House“czars” and kill one of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s signature environmental initiatives as they worked their way through hundreds of amendments.

A final vote on the 2011 budget measure could come as soon as today, which would send the bill to the Senate. The Senate’s Democratic majority is likely to reject the proposal, raising the prospect of a government shutdown.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Thursday that he wouldn’t accept a short-term extension of the stopgap measure currently funding the government without spending cuts. That measure expires March 4 and, with Congress out of session next week, lawmakers will likely need a temporary extension to work out their differences on the longer-term budget the House is debating.

“When we say we’re going to cut spending, read my lips: We’re going to cut spending,” Boehner told reporters.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Boehner of being willing to shut down the government “unless his members get their way on all of their demands.”

White House budget director Jack Lew told reporters the administration wants to prevent a shutdown, and signaled it may accept some immediate cuts. “There are boundaries” to what is acceptable, and the House measure“goes too far,” he said. Still, there is “considerable room for discussion,” Lew said.

Senate Democrats are expected to put forward a temporary extension of the stopgap measure that would prevent a government shutdown and allow continued negotiations.

The House bill aims to fulfill Republicans’ campaign promises to reduce federal spending. The legislation would kill more than 100 programs and cut funding for hundreds more. President Barack Obama’s budget office has threatened a veto, should it reach his desk.

The amendments approved Thursday included one to bar the Federal Communications Commission from implementing “net neutrality” rules that would prevent companies led by AT&T Inc. from interfering with subscribers’ Web traffic. It passed 244-181. The FCC adopted the neutrality rules in December on a Democratic-led 3-2 party-line vote.

The House also approved 217-209 a proposal by Michigan Republican Tim Walberg to nearly double cuts, to $43 million, in the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. That would mean a 25 percent cut from last year’s levels for the agency, which funds theaters, museums, orchestras, ballets and other arts programs.

Lawmakers also adopted an amendment barring funding for White House “czar” positions held by policy advisers that Republicans said should have been confirmed by the Senate. The posts include the “pay czar” who was given the job of enforcing executive compensation rules for companies that received assistance from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The chamber adopted on a voice vote an amendment by Kentucky Republican Ed Whitfield to kill Pelosi’s “Green the Capitol” initiative designed to make Congress more environmentally friendly. Whitfield said the $1.5 million program was too costly.

Lawmakers rejected a bid by Rep. Barney Frank, the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, to reverse cuts in the budget of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which he said needed additional resources to implement the Wall Street regulatory overhaul enacted last year.

“The notion that you should give the SEC less in the current fiscal year than they had last year and ask them to monitor hedge funds,to ask them to improve investor protections, to ask them to look at derivatives, makes no sense,” Frank said.

A number of attempts by rank-and-file Republicans to force deeper cuts in the legislation failed.

The House voted 250-176 against a proposal by Texas Republican Pete Sessions to reduce Amtrak funding by $450 million. Arizona Republican Jeff Flake’s proposal to cut $100 million more from Community Service Block Grants, used by state and local governments for purposes such as housing programs, fell on a 115-316 vote.

Lawmakers also adopted, 249-179, a bid by Washington Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers to restore $557 million in special-education funding.

“As part of our effort to liberate our economy from the shackles of out-of-control spending,” Boehner said, “the House will soon vote to cut discretionary spending by over $100 billion over the last seven months of this fiscal year.”

He added: “That’s five times larger than any discretionary spending cuts ever considered by the House. We’ve exceeded the commitment that we made in our Pledge to America, and there are more reforms and cuts to come.”

The budget measure on the House floor would fund the government through Sept. 30.

Across the Capitol, meanwhile, senators approved a broad aviation bill that would advance modernization of the nation’s air traffic control system and boost airport construction.

The bill was approved 87-8. A similar aviation bill cleared a House committee earlier this week.

Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor and Republican Sen. John Boozman, both of Arkansas, supported the bill.

A hurdle to passage was removed when an agreement was reached to add up to 16 daily round-trip flights between Reagan National Airport, the closest airport to the nation’s capital, and Western states.

Small airports would lose federally subsidized airline service if they are within 90 miles of a larger airport or serve fewer than 10 passengers a day under proposals by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that were added to the bill.

Airports in cities that would lose subsidies include Athens, Ga.; Lebanon, N.H.; Jamestown, N.Y.; Hagerstown, Md.; Jonesboro, Ark.; Morgantown, W.Va.; Jackson, Tenn.; Lititz, Pa., and Franklin-Oil City, Pa., according to a list provided by Coburn’s staff.

Information for this article was contributed by Brian Faler, James Rowley, Dan Parks and Todd Shields of Bloomberg News; by David M. Herszenhorn of The New York Times; and by Joan Lowy of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/18/2011

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