National Post
PJ: Regardless of how a government shutdown affects normal citizens, all Congress men and women, all Senators as well as all members of congressional staff will still receive their paychecks and benefits on time.
U.S. Republicans raise pressure on spending cuts
Donna Smith and Kim Dixon, Reuters
WASHINGTON — Republicans in the House of Representatives Friday called a U.S. government shutdown ”unacceptable” but raised the pressure on President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats to go along with deep spending cuts this year.
The two parties are fighting a pitched battle over public spending and must agree at least to a stopgap measure next week or the government will run out of cash and nonessential services will shut down.
Energized by big wins in November elections, Republicans say any short-term funding for government operations must include deep savings.
“We don’t want to shut the government down. This is not an acceptable or a responsible option for any of us ... but we want to see spending cuts,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a telephone conference with reporters.
He said House Republicans later Friday would detail US$4-billion in spending cuts for a two-week stopgap spending bill, which would need approval by the Senate where Democrats are in the majority.
The current spending authorization ends March 4.
Investment firm Goldman Sachs estimates that deep cuts of US$61-billion by September in a bill passed by the Republican-dominated House last week would significantly slow U.S. economic growth in the second and third quarters of this year. That bill was declared dead by Senate Democrats.
A US$4-billion cut in spending over two weeks would trim the government at about the same rate that House Republicans won in the bill their chamber approved.
The partisan stand-off over the budget comes amid growing nervousness among investors about chaos in the oil-rich Middle East and a U.S. government shutdown could further unnerve global financial markets.
Thousands of federal workers could be laid off in a shutdown, hitting services for millions of Americans and yielding uncertain dividends for whichever political party is blamed for the disruptions. A shutdown would most likely begin with the museums in Washington and national parks.
PET PROJECTS
The Republican proposal Friday will include spending cuts embraced by Obama in his recently submitted budget plan for fiscal 2012, which begins October 1, Cantor said.
It also will target spending earmarked for lawmakers’ pet projects, which both Democrats and Republicans have said is not essential.
Democrats say it is the Republicans who want to stage a government shutdown and argue that cutting too much too fast would hurt the struggling economy.
Democrats want to avoid deep cuts in a temporary stopgap measure and focus negotiations on the longer-term measure instead.
The government has been running on a series of massive temporary funding bills because Congress never enacted specific appropriations bills for this fiscal year, which ends September 30.
House Republican leaders aim to get their chamber to approve their new, temporary spending-cut proposal next week and send it to the Democratic-led Senate.
http://www.financialpost.com/news/Republicans+raise+pressure+spending+cuts/4348976/story.html
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