Budget cuts target Democratic priorities
WASHINGTON -
Democrats and Republicans in Congress reached an agreement late Friday night on $38 billion in budget cuts, averting a partial government shutdown. But, so far, they're not saying exactly where those cuts will come.
The negotiators targeted spending they considered wasteful first, including $3 billion in earmarked transportation projects, billions more in defense spending deemed unnecessary by the Pentagon and $35 million in insurance subsidies for successful farmers, CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.
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But the cuts come at the expense of Democratic priorities, including $1.5 billion from the president's new $8 billion high-speed-rail initiative and several billion from projects at the Department of Education, Department of Labor and Department of Health and Human Services.
Democratic lawmakers from New York Monday vowed to vote against the deal.
"There was no shutdown, but here were a lot of sellouts," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.
"I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances," President Obama said late Friday night.
By the weekend, the president was trying to put the best face possible on the deal with a victory lap of sorts at the Lincoln Memorial.
"Because Congress was able to settle its differences, that's why this place is open today," Mr. Obama told tourists during his impromptu visit.
Among the programs that were spared from cuts: Head Start Preschool, Planned Parenthood, Race to the Top education grants, public broadcasting and funding for biomedical research.
But House Speaker John Boehner told an audience in Connecticut that this is just the beginning and that he'll extract more cuts in exchange for Republican votes to raise the debt limit next month.
"Taking money away from politicians to spend is like taking cocaine away from cocaine addicts," Boehner said.
Many of the cuts in this budget deal were to programs that had unspent funds or that Mr. Obama had intended to scale back anyway.
