US House Republicans struggle to find spending cuts

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans struggled on Wednesday
to gain support for another round of domestic spending cuts,
leaving uncertain the fate of legislation that was to have been
debated on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on
Thursday.

“We’ll bring the first part of our package … to the floor
when we have 218 votes,” said Rep. Roy Blunt, the Missouri
Republican who has temporarily replaced indicted House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay.

Blunt was referring a bill that Republican leaders had
hoped to pass in the House on Thursday to cut mandatory federal
programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and student loans, by $50
billion over the next five years, instead of the previously
planned $35 billion.

House Budget Committee officials said they did not know
whether the measure would make it to the floor on Thursday.
Across Capitol Hill, senators were struggling to agree on just
the $35 billion in savings.

Another proposal, pushed by House conservatives, for a 2
percent across-the-board reduction in government spending, has
proven even more problematic. It has been put off for later in
the year, Blunt said.

The drive to cut government spending beyond the goals set
last spring in a budget blueprint has been sparked by a revolt
among Republican conservatives.

Their efforts got a boost when Congress hurriedly approved
$62.3 billion in emergency funds for Gulf Coast states damaged
by Hurricane Katrina. Those funds would add to an already large
U.S. budget deficit.

In coming days, the White House is expected to submit yet
another request for hurricane aid. A Senate aide said that
while the figure was “still fluid,” it was thought to be around
$20 billion.

House and Senate Republican leaders were scheduled to
discuss hurricane-related funding and new spending cuts to help
pay for the aid in a meeting on Wednesday with President George
W. Bush.

Congressional Democrats have criticized the entire
budget-cutting effort, saying Republicans are trying to cut
some of the very programs that are needed to help hurricane
victims in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, a leading Democrat, also said
that Republicans have another motivation for pushing a new
round of spending cuts.

“What they have proposed will not offset Katrina. It will
offset their tax cuts,” Hoyer said.

The Republican budget blueprint calls for $70 billion in
tax cuts over five years, which would add about $35 billion to
the U.S. debt unless more spending reductions are passed.

Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican leading the charge
for deeper spending cuts, said he was encouraged by House
Speaker Dennis Hastert’s attempts to enact such cuts. But he
added, “There’s a lot of miles between the saying and the doing
here on Capitol Hill.”

Pence has warned that conservatives might try to block
future hurricane relief funds unless there is progress toward
paying for the aid with spending cuts.