The hardest hit agencies would include the Food and Drug Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the departments of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development and Agriculture. . . . Foreign aid on an annualized basis would take a 6 percent cut. . . .
— The Department of Homeland Security would face a budget freeze instead of the 3 percent increase proposed by Obama. . . .
— Republicans would scale back Obama's proposed 4 percent, $23 billion increase for the Pentagon. Instead, the military budget would grow by just $10 billion.
— Popular programs such as health research and federal aid to school districts appear likely to take a hit when lawmakers write the spending bill for the departments of Education, Labor and Health and Human Services. Republicans promise not to cut the minimum $5,550 Pell Grant for low-income college students.
I proposed a combination of tax reforms, cuts to the defense budget, and cuts to domestic spending last November after the election, as a response to the bad proposals considered by the deficit reduction commission and the Republican proposal made during the campaign. To the domestic spending proposal, I made then, I would also suggest deep cuts to federal higher education funds for for profit higher education, on the order of about $2 billion, in a way that would provide greater confidence of results.
Meanwhile the Colorado General Assembly is considering state budget issues as well. Last summer, I addressed some of the issues it is facing (although mostly longer term fiscal viability issues) in the form of a proposed overhaul of the state and local public finances in Colorado.
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