Napa Valley Register - Thompson, Democrats call GOP's spending plan ‘irresponsible'
The Republican spending plan, known as House Resolution 1, is a continuing resolution designed to keep the federal government funded through the end of the current fiscal year in lieu of a new budget.
The resolution calls for a host of deep cuts to services ranging from transportation to health care for a savings of as much as $100 billion. The GOP leadership is touting its proposal as the largest reduction in discretionary spending in the nation's history and a first step to tackling the federal deficit which is expected to be $1.6 trillion this year.
“The cuts in this (plan) are the result of difficult work by our subcommittees who have weeded out excessive, unnecessary and wasteful spending, making tough choices to prioritize programs based on their effectiveness and benefit to the American people,” Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky, chair of the House appropriations committee, wrote last week.
House Democrats, including Napa's Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, have since labeled the cuts as irresponsible, saying they will have catastrophic effects on local economies.
“What they're doing is a lot like waking up in the morning, realizing you've put on a lot of weight and deciding you're going to lose it by cutting off your leg,” Thompson said during a Thursday conference call that included seven other California Democrats.
Of the cuts proposed in the spending plan, Thompson identified reductions to health care and water resource funding as being among the most harmful.
If passed, the plan would strip away roughly $1.3 billion in federal money from the nation's community health centers â€" an action Thompson says will directly affect the area's elderly, homeless and farmworker population.
According to the National Association of Community Health Centers, California's immediate share of the cuts would translate to 750 lost jobs, more than 450,000 patients losing access to care, 12 health care clinics being closed and nearly $32 million in lost funding.
Rather than save money, Thompson points out that the measure could inflate the overall cost of care by forcing under-served populations to rely on costly emergency room services rather than preventative treatment offered by clinics.
“The cost of health care for these folks is going to go through the roof,” he said.
Also of concern to Thompson are cuts to key water initiatives in California, which he believes will threaten the North Coast's salmon fishing industry.
On Wednesday, Thompson blasted the proposed cuts on the House floor, labeling them as “irresponsible and arbitrary” while claiming they would result in the loss of 800,000 public and private jobs nationwide.
“Over the years, my district has been hit hard by ill-informed water management decisions that have resulted in dramatic declines in salmon stock,” Thompson said. “Today's bill does the same thing, by waiving federal protections which put at risk fishing industry jobs.”
While areas targeted for cuts have raised concern for legislators, the final tally of cuts being proposed in the GOP plan isn't known, though the figure likely will fall between $60 billion and $100 billion.
With the bill still being debated â€" and nearly 600 amendments having been proposed â€" it could be some time before potential effects are finalized, Rep. Zoe Lufgren, D-San Jose, said.
If the Congress and President Obama fail to agree on a spending plan by March 4 â€" when the current continuing resolution runs out â€" they run the risk of a government shutdown, similar to the one seen in the mid-1990s.
Earlier this week, President Obama unveiled his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year â€" a $3.7 trillion spending plan that he says, through a mix of long-term cuts and investments, will reduce the deficit by $1.1 trillion over the next decade.
Republicans have panned the budget since its release, saying it doesn't do enough to rein in spending, while some Democrats have claimed the cuts are too severe.
Both the House and Senate are expected to recess next week, leaving only four days to produce a spending plan if a shutdown is to be avoided. Democrats in the House said their colleagues in the Senate have shown “no appetite” for the cuts being proposed in the lower chamber, meaning a different course of action will likely need to be taken â€" and taken quickly.
“I would suggest that the leadership dispense with debating the 600 amendments on the floor,” Thompson said. “Let's get down to doing the work and stop this malarkey.”