House GOP Split on Budget Cuts

Compromise between Democrats and Republicans is looking bleaker: A conservative contingent of House Republicans called on GOP House leadership to make much more dramatic spending cuts than those proposed so far. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is looking to make only about $60 billion in cuts to this year’s budget, which would require cutting all agencies other than the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security by 15 percent. But the Republican Study Committee wants the GOP to keep their campaign promise of slashing budgets by $100 billion—and within the next seven months. Such a move would require cutting agency budgets by 30 percent. Democrats say this would require laying off thousands of FBI agents and food safety inspectors and cutting hundreds of thousands of children from Head Start. And the committee isn’t a small contingent, either: It’s made up of 165 members, 73 of them freshmen, and represents two-thirds of House Republicans. After the $100 billion in cuts, the committee recommends cutting more than $2.5 trillion in spending over the next decade.