House rejects $3.8 billion in cuts to 2011 spending bill

In a series of votes over the last two days, the House has rejected $3.8 billion in proposed cuts to the FY 2011 spending bill, and accepted $485 million during that same period.

The House has held more than 20 votes on amendments so far to its 2011 spending bill, including a string of 15 votes Wednesday afternoon on amendments the House debated Tuesday night.

The most notable cut so far is a $450 million reduction in funding for an alternative engine for the joint strike fighter. Members on Wednesday also voted to cut $34 million from the National Drug Intelligence Center. On Tuesday, the House agreed to cut $1.9 million from the Bureau of Reclamation.

But the rejected spending cuts loom much larger, and in many ways reveal the difficulty Republicans in particular will have cutting spending despite the effort by GOP leaders to cut spending.

On Wednesday, the House rejected $1.5 billion in cuts for the Iraq Security Forces Fund, by far the biggest spending cut proposal considered so far. The House also rejected a proposal to eliminate $400 million from the Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund, $324 million from the Legal Services Corporation and $70 million from an energy efficiency program.

That followed votes on Tuesday to reject $502 million in cuts to Defense Department research and development programs, $415 million in cuts to fund the purchase of V-22 Ospreys and a $115 million cut to alternative energy research programs at DoD.

These specific decisions on amendments may matter little, as the White House on Tuesday said it would veto the House GOP bill, and the bill is not expected to be taken up in the Senate. Nonetheless, the House resumed work on amendments Wednesday afternoon, and was expected to continue that work into Thursday and possibly Friday.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that votes may go past the 3 p.m. Thursday deadline, but didn't say whether votes might extend into Friday.