White House agrees to $6.5B more in cuts
WASHINGTON — Their opening volleys behind them, the White House and tea party-backed Republicans in Congress still face a gaping disagreement over how much to immediately cut from domestic programs over the next six months as a down payment on out-of-control budget deficits.
Only two weeks remain before a stopgap funding bill runs out, but neither side seems in a hurry to move off of its position in any significant way — at least yet.
In opening talks Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden offered Republicans a package of mostly recycled budget cuts totaling $6.5 billion in response to GOP-backed legislation slashing domestic agency budgets back to levels in place before President Barack Obama took office.
The White House cuts fell well short of what resurgent Republicans are demanding but were seen by Democrats as an attempt to meet Republicans in the middle.
“Democrats stand ready to meet the Republicans halfway on this,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. “That would be fair.”
The combatants are involved in a dizzying numbers game that not all of them seem able to explain clearly. Republicans say they’ve cut $100 billion from Obama’s budget requests for the ongoing fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, but when Democrats use the same measuring stick to claim more than $40 billion — based on their agreement to freeze spending right away — GOP aides dismiss the moves as embracing the status quo.
Democrats, for their part, claim as their own $4 billion in savings from a GOP-drafted stopgap spending bill signed by Obama on Wednesday. And the additional cuts proposed on Thursday carve little new ground.
