Are the Republicans Backing off 'Pledge' Budget Cuts?

No Surprise, Republicans to Break Promise on Spending Cuts
Republican leaders are scaling back that number by as much as half, aides say, because the current Fiscal Year, which began Oct. 1, will be nearly half over before Spending Cuts could become law. While House Republicans were never expected to succeed in enacting cuts of that scale, given opposition in the Senate from the Democratic majority and some Republicans, and from President Obama, a House vote would put potentially vulnerable Republican lawmakers on record supporting deep reductions of up...

PROMISES, PROMISES: GOP drops some out of the gate (AP)
WASHINGTON – Republicans have already violated some of the vows they made in taking stewardship of the House. Their pledge to cut $100 billion from the Budget in one year won't be kept. And for a coming vote seeking to Repeal the Health Care overhaul, the first major initiative of the new Congress, lawmakers won't be allowed to propose changes to the Legislation despite Republican promises to end such heavy-handed tactics from the days of Democratic control. Is business as usual really b...

PROMISES, PROMISES: GOP drops some out of the gate
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans have already violated some of the vows they made in taking stewardship of the House. Their pledge to cut $100 billion from the Budget in one year won’t be kept. And for a coming vote seeking to Repeal the Health Care overhaul, the first major initiative of the new Congress, lawmakers won’t be allowed to propose changes to the Legislation despite Republican promises to end such heavy-handed tactics from the days of Democratic control. Is business as...

No Surprise, Republicans to Break Promise on Spending Cuts
No Surprise, Republicans to Break Promise on Spending Cuts In September, future House Speaker John Boehner unveiled the GOP Pledge to America, which among its other warmed-over Republican nostrums promised to save "at least $100 billion in the first year alone" from the federal Budget. In December, incoming House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) repeated the GOP guarantee that "a good $100 billion" would be trimmed. Now, after months of cowardly refusing to specify what those draconi...

Tea Party Leader: Reduction in Goal for GOP Budget Cuts is an "Absolute Joke"
(Credit: CBS) "So far so good" is how a leading Tea Party organizer characterizes the Republican ascension in Congress. CBS News spoke to Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler as he roamed the halls of the House of Representatives, delivering a welcome letter and copies of the Constitution to new and old members of Congress. "Some new rules are good thing, it's a great start to the session," he said. Meckler defended the Republicans' pledge to read the Constitution on the House floor as ...

PROMISES, PROMISES: GOP drops some out of the gate
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio holds up the gavel during the first session of the 112th Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2011. Republicans have already violated some of the vows they made in taking stewardship of the House. Their pledge to cut $100 billion from the Budget in one year won't be kept. And for a coming vote seeking to Repeal the Health Care overhaul, the first major initiative of the new Congress, lawmakers won't be allowed to propose changes to the l...

House appropriators face deep budget cut in anti-earmark era
The slights keep coming for the once-mighty congressional appropriations committees, but at least the latest insult was of their own doing. When House Republicans unveiled details of their plan for a 5 percent cut in funding for legislative offices and committees, they included an additional slash at the House Appropriations Committee. The appropriators asked for and got a 9 percent cut in their Budget as part of the resolution, which is expected to be approved by the full House this week. &...

House Republicans dial back on promises
Washington (CNN) - Even before House Republicans took control of the chamber Wednesday, there were at least three areas where they appear to be backtracking on promises made: Cutting $100 billion in the first year, allowing opportunities for the minority party to offer amendments on bills, and making public attendance records for committee hearings. The Republicans ran for office in 2010 on a platform they titled "The Pledge to America," which states they would reduce Government Spending t...

The Spending That Matters
Their excuse will be that the Fiscal Year, which began on October 1, will already be almost half over by the time the budgetary resolution that was passed during the Lame Duck runs out in March. That means they’ll only have seven months to work with this fiscal year; when they said they’d cut $100 billion, they meant the first full fiscal year that they’re in charge. But wait, you say! Shouldn’t it be fairly easy to find $100 billion to cut in an annual Budget that exceed...

After losing House, Democrats will try new strategy: bipartisanship
The Democratic wish list for the 112th Congress looks nothing like the bold liberal agenda the party pushed over the past two years. This Story After losing House, Democrats will try new strategy: Bipartisanship The House freshmen The 112th Congress convenes Interactive: Burning questions about Congress View All Items in This Story View Only Top Items in This Story Democratic leaders say they could take up the cause of Deficit reduction, urge a free-trade agreement with South Korea and advoca...

Meet the Freshmen
In case you missed it last night, here’s video of Sean Hannity and Frank Luntz’s focus group with freshmen Republicans in the US House of Representatives. If this group sticks to their principles I believe there’s reason for hope. I wish them luck. Update: Speaker John Boehner has advised that the opening session of the 112th Congress will be streamed live. House Republicans will live stream the opening session of the 112th Congress - including the swearing-in ceremony ...

GOP House Leaders and New Spending Promises
One of the most explicit promises Speaker John Boehner, R-Oh., and the newly empowered Republicans made was to cut Deficits immediately by returning to 2008 spending levels. "Which, if we were able to do with the whole Fiscal Year, would reduce spending by 100 billion dollars," says Representative Mike Pence, R-In. But Republicans won't have a whole Budget year to work with. Congress failed to pass a current Budget even though the fiscal year began last October. So the government is now operatin...

Gates Proposing Cuts in Military Budget
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates is announcing the latest round of cost-cutting measures for the Military, including a plan to do away with a new amphibious vehicle that can ferry Troops to shore while under fire. The plan is aimed at staving off potentially deeper cuts by the White House or Congress by showing that the Pentagon is taking seriously a call to rein in the nation's Deficit. The Defense Department is responsible for the biggest piece of Discretionary Spending in the fed...

Defense Secretary Gates Proposing Program Cuts in Military Budget
Thursday, January 06, 2011 By Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Washington (AP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates is announcing the latest round of cost-cutting measures for the Military, including a plan to do away with a new amphibious vehicle that can ferry Troops to shore while under fire. The plan is aimed at staving off potentially deeper cuts by the White House or Congress by showing that the Pentagon is taking seriously a call to rein in the nation's Deficit. The Defense Department is ...

Gates proposing program cuts in military budget
FILE - In this Aug. 24, 2010, file photo, a prototype of a Marine Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle runs a test in the waters off the coast of Oceanside, Calif. Defense Sec. Robert Gates was expected to announce on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2010, that he would cancel a $13 billion plan to buy the Marines amphibious assault vehicles from General Dynamics Corp., in the latest rounds of cost-cutting measures for the Military. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is announcing the latest round of cost-cutting measu...

GOP promise to cut $100 billion may end up more like $30 billion
"Now they are talking about cuts as slim as $30 billion," he writes , "blaming the change on the fine print that no one read -- or if they read, did not understand." According to Fineman, the GOP meant it would cut $100 billion from a Budget that President Obama proposed, but which was never passed . Nearly halfway through the Fiscal Year, we still don't have a Budget as Congress continues to pass so-called continuing resolutions, so forget about the $100 billion. Even tea partiers admit th...

Republicans Back Off Pledge To Cut Budget By $100 Billion
If we’ve learned anything over the last two years, it’s that we cannot spend our way to prosperity. We offer a plan to stop out-of control spending and reduce the size of government. With common-sense exceptions for seniors, Veterans, and our Troops, we will roll back Government Spending to pre-stimulus, prebailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone and putting us on a path to balance the Budget and pay down the Debt. But that’s not working out so w...

GOP 2011 budget will not cut $100 billion
The incoming House Republican majority gained power by pledging to cut $100 billion from the federal Budget in its first year in power, but aides confirmed Wednesday that this figure is no longer valid. The GOP will remain true to its pledge to try to return non-security Discretionary Spending to 2008 levels, but the $100 billion figure had been based on President Obama's 2011 Budget message.   Democrats never passed a Budget resolution last year and were only abl...

Rhetoric v. Reality, Part III: Cut $100 billion almost immediately
Source: "A Pledge to America: The 2010 Republican Agenda", page 23 House Republicans have repeatedly promised to cut at least $100 billion in Discretionary Spending as soon as they took control of the House. The promise was part of their “Pledge to America,” the 2010 counterpart to the 1994 “Contract With America.” Speaker John Boehner reiterated it just before the election, telling the country that “We’re ready to cut spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bai...

NYT Pretends GOP Is Reneging On Cuts
From the Democrats’ lickspittle minions at the New York Times: Republicans Lower Goal for Cuts to Budget By JACKIE CALMES January 4, 2011 WASHINGTON — Many people knowledgeable about the federal budget said House Republicans could not keep their campaign promise to cut $100 billion from Domestic Spending in a single year. Now it appears that Republicans agree. What a perfect example of what passes for journalism at the New York Times. Notice that there is no evidence that many know...

An I Told You So Post
So, having heard for months that the Republicans really are serious about cutting Government Spending this time, and that they’d be able to do it without cutting Medicare, Social Security, or defense, even if it would be a laughably small $100 billion in cuts as compared to the $14 Trillion dollars in Deficits (a figure little different than that proposed by the American Commie-Socialist Party), the Republicans have returned to power and we get to see if they are actually going to put our ...

Taking charge, GOP overhauls rules in House
WASHINGTON -- Jubilant Republicans took control of the House on Wednesday and installed Rep. John Boehner of Ohio as the new speaker before pushing through an overhaul of House rules intended to ease their drive to dismantle the new Health Care law, cut federal spending and provide the Tax Cuts they see as a way to jump-start The Economy. In the Senate, tensions over the partisan stalemate that dominated the last session spilled over into the opening of the 112th Congress as a coalition of Demo...

Republicans Trim Millions from House's Own Budget
The Budget cutting begins at home. House Republicans on Tuesday said they would reduce expenses of the House itself by $35.2 million to underscore their commitment to slashing Government Spending across the board. Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, who has directed the transition for the new Republican majority, said that the reductions would be made in salaries and expenses to leadership offices, committees and individual lawmakers’ office budgets. But even as the incoming speaker, Joh...

Dan Lipinski declines to vote for Pelosi as Democratic House leader
WASHINGTON--Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) was one of 19 House Democrats who declined on Wednesday to vote for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as Democratic leader. Lipinski, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House has long been at ideological odds with Pelosi during her time as House Speaker. Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House, ended her tenure when she turned over the gavel to new Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Lipinski said in a statement that since the selection of Pelosi...

New Illinois congressman takes oath, with wife and 10 kids
WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress tend to come with an entourage, but even by the standards of the nation's capital, Rep. Bobby Schilling of Illinois has a big one. Schilling, 46, entered Congress today trailed by his wife, Christie, 44, and their 10 kids, Terry, 24, Aaron, 21, Levi, 18, Joe, 17, Isabel, 15, Rachel, 13, Olivia, 9, Sam, 5, Sophia, 3, and Anthony, who's 11 months old. Schilling, a pizzeria owner making his first bid for office, ousted two-term Incumbent Phil Hare, a Democrat, in...