WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said Sunday that he’s “confident” Senate Democrats and House Republicans will reach an agreement on a two-week spending bill that would avoid a government shutdown.
The House Republicans’ latest proposal on the spending bill is “clearly headed in the right direction,” said Conrad, D-N.D., on CNN’s State of the Union program. “It is acceptable to me to have $4 billion in savings in a two-week package,” and negotiations should focus on where to make those cuts, he said.
House Republicans on Friday dropped demands for reductions in a number of government programs, proposing instead to keep most federal agencies at current budget levels through March 18. The two-week spending bill would make $4 billion in cuts through a handful of reductions already backed by President Barack Obama and by eliminating unspent funds for legislative pet projects.
A two-week agreement would give Congress time to work on a longer-term measure to fund the government through Sept. 30, the end of the 2011 fiscal year. Lawmakers must reach agreement on some kind of short-term spending plan before March 4, when current spending legislation runs out. If a short-term plan is not passed, federal agencies will close.
Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday that “for the sake of our people and our economy, we cannot allow gridlock to prevail.” He said he is willing to discuss spending cuts as long as they don’t damage America’s ability to compete in the world economy by reducing expenditures on education or infrastructure.
House Speaker John Boehner made his case to religious broadcasters Sunday for the plan’s $4 billion in “reasonable spending cuts.”
Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said the alternate plan is a “a shorter-term bill that will also keep the government running while including reasonable spending cuts at the same time.”
House Republicans specifically want to target entitlement programs, like Medicaid and Medicare, the speaker said.
“To not address entitlement programs, as is the case with the budget the president has put forward, would be an economical and moral failure,” Boehner said. “By acting now, we can fulfill the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans without making changes for those in or near retirement.”
The costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid represent the “overall majority” of thenation’s spending problem, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday on the CBS program Face the Nation. Unless officials deal with controlling them, “those three are going to eat up everything else,” he said.
The House on Feb. 20 passed legislation that would cut $61 billion in spending this year by eliminating more than 100 programs and cutting hundreds of others. Senate Democrats have rejected those cuts, saying they would threaten the economic recovery. Even so, Democrats have said they will seek additional cuts.
The House Republican proposal would make $1.24 billion in reductions, including a $650 million cut in highway spending, $75 million less for election-assistance grants to states and a $29 million reduction in a broadband loan program. It would end four Education Department programs as proposed in Obama’s budget request earlier this month.
Information for this article was contributed by Brian Faler, James Rowley and Tim Jones of Bloomberg News and by Erik Schelzig of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 02/28/2011