Blue Dog Demands May Hinder House Budget Resolution

The Blue Dog coalition is pushing for further spending cuts beyond what is in the President’s and Senate’s budget proposals. Specifically, the coalition would like to see non-defense domestic discretionary spending cut by 2 percent a year for three years, and then frozen for an additional two years. This goes further than the Senate budget bill, which embraces the President's three year non-security discretionary spending freeze, and includes even more cuts beyond that.

For FY 2011 spending alone, this would mean a cut somewhere around $10 billion. In comparison, the budget drafted last week and reported out of the Senate Budget Committee would cut non-defense domestic discretionary by about $1 billion for the year.

This amount – roughly $10 billion – is more than Democratic leaders and Appropriations Chairman David Obey may be able to swallow, which is why it is less likely that the House will be able to come up with a budget resolution that would get enough Democratic support to pass.

While CRFB would like to see the House be able to pass a budget resolution this year, we applaud members of Blue Dog coalition for pushing for strong policies to help reach a fiscal goal. Attitudes like those of Alan Boyd, who recently said, "I don't think in Washington people have come to grips with the fiscal crisis we've got yet," are too few and far between.