House members call for broader spending cuts

Republicans and Democrats found common ground this morning on a Congressional need to subject more parts of the federal budget to spending cuts to significantly reduce the budget deficit.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said in a floor speech that Republicans are focusing on cuts to just a $446 billion piece of the $3.7 trillion budget (non-security discretionary spending). He said Republicans want to "pretend they're doing something meaningful" but said that even eliminating all of this spending would still leave the U.S. with a $1 trillion deficit this year.

"So perhaps they've made a few too many things off limits in terms of where we might look to cut," he said.

DeFazio suggested cutting agricultural subsidies and raising taxes on oil companies. He cited ExxonMobil as a company that "didn't pay any taxes in the U.S. last year."

"We're borrowing money to give to the ExxonMobil corporation which had a $9 billion profit [in the last quarter] by gouging consumers in America," he said.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) agreed a bigger piece of the budget needs to be attacked, but suggested a different approach — cutting foreign aid. Poe listed several countries that receive aid but perhaps should not, including Venezuela and Cuba.

"Maybe it's time that we reconsider sending aid to Egypt," he added. "If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over that country of Egypt, the world's in a lot of trouble."

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) then took to the floor and warned that even the cuts the GOP wants to impose over the next year, amounting to $2.5 trillion over 10 years, would put at risk more than 1 million jobs. Tonko said thousands of law enforcement jobs would be cut and billions of dollars in loans to small businesses would be put at risk.