House Begins Efforts to Cut Spending

Today the House Budget Committee Chairman announced spending caps that will govern the continuing resolution to be considered in the House in mid-February.  The budget caps will reduce spending government wide by about $35 billion from 2010 spending levels. Specific spending cuts have not been decided yet, but every category of spending other than Defense is forecast to receive a cut in spending. The spending cuts are subdivided into two categories: Non-Defense/Non-Security; and Defense, Security and Veterans.  The Defense, Security and Veterans portion of the budget totals about $625 billion, and gets an increase of about 1%.  All Non-Defense Discretionary (totaling about $462 billion) will absorb about $43 billion in spending cuts or a cut of about 9% below 2010 spending levels.  The federal government spent about $120 billion on construction in 2010. The Appropriations Committee will announce what programmatic spending reductions they plan to make over the next week.    While the total cut will be about 9%, we anticipate some programs could be cut by up to 20%.  We are now working with our allies to protect spending for infrastructure programs. For more information contact Jeff Shoaf at shoafj@agc.org.