A $1.1 trillion measure to freeze spending on most government programmes at current levels was approved by the US House as lawmakers pushed to complete work on a stack of overdue appropriations bills.
The bill, approved 212-206 yesterday, would cut billions from President Barack Obama’s defence budget request, freeze the pay of non-military government employees and give the Interior Department more time to consider potential environmental effects of proposed oil and gas drilling permits. It also includes an additional $159 billion in “emergency” funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The measure would cut $46 billion, or about 4 per cent, from the White House’s budget request for the fiscal year that began October 1. Lawmakers attached an unrelated food-safety measure that cleared the Senate last month before being tripped up by constitutional concerns that, because it includes revenue provisions, it must originate in the House.
In the vote on the bill, 35 opposed it while no Republicans supported it.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, said the measure would make “adjustments that just might ease the financial desperation facing so many families today.”
Stopgap funding
The government is currently funded by a stopgap measure that expires December 18 after Democrats failed to pass a budget or any of the 12 annual appropriations bills setting spending levels for individual agencies and programmes.
House Republicans have called for a short-term funding bill that would make it easier for them to begin cutting spending when they take control of the House in January. Republicans promised to roll back domestic “discretionary” spending to 2008 levels, which would mean a $100 billion cut.