FY 2011 Federal Funding Battles are OVER

[BeachSiO2]

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Breaking News Alert: Senate passes 2011 funding bill, sending it to President Obama
April 14, 2011 5:57:10 PM
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The Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would fund the federal government through the end of September and reduce federal agency budgets by more than $38 billion. The funding deal, announced late last week, passed the Senate Thursday on a bipartisan 81-to-19 vote, hours after the House passed it on a 260-to-167 vote. Ahead of the final vote, the Senate also rejected measures that would have defunded the national health-care law and Planned Parenthood; the two Senate votes had been agreed to as part of the budget deal. President Obama must sign the funding measure into law by midnight Friday in order to avert a federal shutdown.

 

[TNJed]

CBO: Budget deal cuts this fiscal year’s deficit by just $352 million, not $38 billion touted

By Associated Press, Wednesday, April 13, 12:40 PM


WASHINGTON — A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in promised savings by the end of this budget year.


The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would cut federal outlays from non-war accounts by just $352 million through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in immediate cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.
When war funding is factored in the legislation would actually increase total federal outlays by $3.3 billion relative to current levels.
To a fair degree, the lack of immediate budget-cutting punch is because the budget year is more than half over and that cuts in new spending authority typically are slow to register on deficit tallies. And Republicans promise that when fully implemented and repeated year after year, the cuts in the measure would reduce the deficit by $315 billion over the coming decade.
Still, the analysis is an early lesson about Washington budgeting for junior lawmakers elected last year on promises to swiftly attack the deficit.






full story of the Titanic's deck-chair rearrangement at Washington Post