House Passes Continuing Resolution to Cut $312 Billion Over Ten Years

 The House has approved a bipartisan Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government through September, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today confirms will cut this year’s spending by nearly $40 billion – or $78.5 billion less than President Obama proposed in his FY 2011 budget.  CBO also reports the cuts will result in $312 billion in savings over the next decade.

“I wanted the $61 billion in cuts the House approved in March,” says Republican Conference Secretary John Carter, “but $39.5 billion in cuts is still the largest spending cut in U.S. history, and we did it without a government shutdown.  At some point you need to take the win and move on to the next game, which is coming in September with the FY2012 budget.  With this agreement, we stopped the out-of-control growth in federal spending that’s been on the rampage since 2008, while protecting the pay of our military forces in a time of war.  Now we can move forward to saving $6 trillion off the 2012 budget.” 

The measure, H.R. 1473, passed by a 260-167 margin.   The amount of cuts had been debated since the compromise budget was agreed to late Friday by House Speaker John Boehner, the President, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  The final CBO score released today contains the savings amount from the previous spending levels authorized by Congress, as the continuing resolution is a spending authorization bill.