House likely to pass bill to cut staff budgets

“This is a good starting point,” he said. “That’s just a start and there are other things we’ll find over time that the House Administration Committee will pursue.”

Walden, who was selected by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to lead the GOP Transition Team following the November elections, was put in charge of finding ways to cut costs in the House of Representatives. 

Meanwhile, several Democratic senators assailed the Republican budget plans under the House rules, arguing that House Republicans are willing to let tax cuts increase the deficit without paying for them.  

“They said the reason they came into power is to reduce the deficit. That’s — was their claim,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Thursday. “And they’re not going along with it, period.”

“Whether you increase the deficit by giving tax breaks or increase the deficit by spending more doesn’t matter,” he said. “The deficit goes up. And we are calling them on what they campaigned on, as opposed to what they’re doing on the first day.”

The cost of all items the Republicans have exempted from pay-as-you-go rules “is a staggering $1.01 trillion in red ink,” Schumer said. 

Schumer said Republican plans to permanently extend estate tax cuts and the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax breaks, as well as repeal the “doughnut-hole” fix for seniors and other reforms from the healthcare law, and give businesses a new tax break are exempted and will add up. 

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said “we are learning, unfortunately, that the new Republican leadership is replacing “pay as you go” with “pretend as you go.” 

“The latest Republican artifice is even funnier than the Laffer curve, because what they have basically said to us is that there are certain things that won’t be counted toward the deficit,” he said.