WASHINGTON – The House on Tuesday passed the first of 12 spending bills for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, a popular measure providing more money for veterans’ programs like health care.
The boost for veterans came even as Republicans controlling the chamber marched ahead with a plan that would require most other domestic programs to absorb even deeper cuts next year than those in place now after the imposition of across-the-board spending cuts.
Those cuts, known as sequestration, would wring more than $100 billion from the $3.6 trillion federal budget, most of which comes from the approximately $1 trillion “discretionary” portion of the budget approved by Congress each year to fund the day-to-day operations of federal agencies.
The veterans’ measure passed by a 421-4 vote Tuesday evening, even though the White House already had weighed in with a veto threat. The White House doesn’t have a problem with the substance of the veterans’ bill; rather it opposes the broader GOP spending plan, saying it would force destructive cuts to programs like Head Start pre-school for the poor, medical research and federal law enforcement. The White House and its Democratic allies in Congress support spending levels more than $90 billion – about 9 percent – above those called for by the tea party-driven House.
Republicans are coping with the shortfall by slashing across a broad swath of domestic programs, forcing cuts in the range of 20 percent, for instance, to a huge domestic spending bill that funds aid to local school districts, health research and enforcement of labor laws. Cuts to domestic agencies are magnified by a move to restore $28 billion in sequester-imposed cuts to the Pentagon.