Budget cuts target health, housing, school programs

WASHINGTON – The largest domestic spending cut in U.S. history will upend almost every federal agency and slash programs dealing with health care, housing aid and education, but give the Pentagon an extra $5 billion.

The measure, which was still being drafted Monday night, would achieve $38 billion in reductions over the remaining six months of the 2011 fiscal year, as the White House and congressional leaders agreed late Friday. It would end, at least for now, the threat of a government shutdown.

House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, may be forced to rely on Democrats to pass the bill, however. Dozens of Republicans argue that the compromise does not adequately cut programs and services.

“Make no mistake: I oppose this negotiated deal,” Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, wrote on her Twitter account. She wanted deeper cuts and conservative policy priorities, including elimination of funds for the health care overhaul.

Voters approve of the deal and credit President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats more than Republicans for reaching it, according to a CNN survey released Monday.

Congress is expected to approve the measure and turn to broader battles, including the future of Medicare, Medicaid and upper-income tax cuts in the 2012 fiscal year.

The 2011 budget agreement outlined the overall amount of cuts and their broad outlines. Negotiators were working late Monday to identify the specifics.

One high-profile Pentagon project, $455 million for an alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter jet, was expected to be eliminated.

But the Head Start preschool program targeted by the GOP will be spared, as will most funding for Pell Grants for college students, the White House said. Funding also was preserved for Planned Parenthood and the new health care law.

The deal blocks money to transfer detainees from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to mainland courts. Negotiators also agreed not to reinstate the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, home state of Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, who opposes the dump. Specific savings were not disclosed late Monday.

A proposal that would take wolves off the endangered species list, allowing them to be hunted in Western states, would be retained, but another that would have loosened restrictions on shotgun and rifle sales was dropped.

Nearly 35 domestic programs were terminated or severely reduced by the first $10 billion in cuts, which came in a series of stopgap deals to keep the government running during the five-week stalemate. Friday’s final deal added another $28 billion in cuts.

Earlier trims include more than $500 million from literacy programs for children and initiatives to reduce high school class sizes, and $350 million from job-training programs, including one for older Americans.

Lawmakers also returned to the Treasury nearly $2 billion left over from the 2010 census, and cut $30 million to repair the Smithsonian “castle” on the National Mall.

Also axed was $650 million from highway accounts, $200 million for wildfire suppression and $276 million for flu pandemics that the administration said can be covered from other sources.

Congress also relinquished more than $5 billion in “earmarked” funds that lawmakers requested for various home-state projects.