Time is running out to avert a government shutdown #p2

BEFORE November's election, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives solemnly promised that they would cut spending by $100 billion this year alone if voters put their party in charge. Voters did, in the House at least, and on February 19th the new Republican majority repaid the compliment by approving cuts of $100 billion in the budget Barack Obama proposed for last year (compared with the short-term "continuing" spending resolutions Congress has actually adopted, the cut is only $61 billion). The hitch is that the measure will not become law, since the Democrats who control the Senate, not to mention the president with his veto pen, are implacably opposed to it. With the continuing resolution due to expire on March 4th, there is little time to work out a compromise, and little evidence either side wants one.

The cuts the House approved are swingeing by Washington's standards. They constitute an unprecedented reduction of some 10% in non-defence discretionary spending, meaning all government programmes bar mandatory entitlement schemes and defence (see chart). Food-safety inspections, oversight of financial institutions, college scholarships for the poor, nutrition schemes for mothers and babies and other seemingly unobjectionable items would all be scaled down. Funding for pet Democratic causes, such as public broadcasting, regulating greenhouse-gas emissions and Mr Obama's health-care reforms, would be eliminated altogether. There were even some cuts to homeland security and defence—normally a sacred cow for Republicans. The party's fiscal hawks teamed up with Democrats, for example, to approve an amendment that would scrap a programme to develop a second engine for a military jet.

Tim Geithner, the secretary of the treasury, said the cuts would "damage our capacity to create jobs and expand the economy". Harry Reid, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, complained that the Republicans were slashing "the programmes that keep us safe and keep the economy growing". Mr Obama, who proposed a mere freeze on non-security discretionary spending in his budget earlier this month, had threatened a veto of the House bill even before it was passed. Yet the Republican Study Committee, a group which counts 175 of the 241 Republicans in the House as members, had wanted to cut $22 billion more.

rest at http://www.economist.com/node/18233476