The last-minute budget deal: What gets cut?
Congress settled on $38.5 billion in spending reductions late Friday, mere hours before the government would have shut down. Endangered wolves are on the chopping block. What else?
In the drama over Friday's 11th-hour deal for this year's federal budget, the substance of what the Republicans and Democrats finally agreed on — a $38.5 billion laundry list of spending cuts — was somewhat overlooked. As details of exactly what will be slashed begin to emerge, it's clear that neither NPR nor Planned Parenthood are on the list, but Republicans will still be happy with the axing of certain federal programs. Here, a quick list of some key cuts:
High-speed rail
President Obama agreed to a $1.5 billion cut on a policy close to his heart, says Sam Stein at The Huffington Post: The planned national high-speed rail system. This represents a "major hit to one of the president's favorite transportation priorities," and only strengthens critics' suspicion that high speed rail is a "pie-in-the-sky policy."
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Endangered wolves
Wolves in Idaho and Montana will be removed from the endangered species list as part of the budget deal on the environment. While that's "bad news for the northern Rockies," says Glenn Hurowitz at The Huffington Post, the Democrats fared slightly better on environmental funding as a whole. The EPA's funding was cut by $1.49 billion, not the $3 billion originally proposed by Republicans, and the agency will continue to regulate carbon emissions.
The United Nations
The bill cuts $377 million from the U.S. contribution to the United Nations. That may not seem like a significant number in the big picture, says Howard LaFranchi at The Christian Science Monitor, but it will have a marked effect on the U.N. The U.S. contributes nearly a quarter of the U.N.'s total budget, and Obama is requesting $3.5 billion for the U.N. in his 2012 budget. A "wall of Republican resistance" is likely to spur further cuts to U.N. spending.
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Abortions in Washington, D.C.
Planned Parenthood may have been spared, but the GOP did manage to end taxpayer-funded abortions in the District of Columbia. The Mayor of Washington D.C., Vincent Gray, was arrested Monday on the streets of the capitol during a protest against the provision.
Summer school Pell Grants
On education, the president's "Race to the Top" initiative was left unscathed, but the Pell Grant program will be trimmed. Scrapping summer school grants and preventing students from using two Pell grant awards simultaneously will save $493 million this year, and more than $35 billion over the next decade.
The Children's Health Insurance Program
The government will save $3.5 billion by scrapping bonus payments to states that successfully enroll large numbers of previously uninsured children in Medicaid. Republicans were unsuccessful in pushing for an end to all funding for President Obama's signature health care reform law.
The Joint Strike Fighter jet
The Pentagon is one of the few government departments that did not see an overall funding reduction — in fact, it will receive a $5 billion increase — but the bill does slash $4.2 billion in military earmarks, including funds for the Joint Strike Fighter jet engine that would have been built in John Boehner's Ohio district.
Sources: Los Angeles Times, CNN, NPR, ABC News, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post (2), The Hill, KGMI, KBOI
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