Dicks expecting full-year CR with cuts in defense spending

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) predicted Tuesday night that the House will pass a continuing resolution through the rest of fiscal 2011. 

"It will be full-year CR with anomalies," Dicks said after the State of the Union address. "That's what it looks like."

Dicks, who also is the ranking member on the Defense Subcommittee, expects that Republicans will aim to cut between $11 billion and $13 billion in defense spending this year to "get the number to where they want it."

House Republicans will unveil and vote on their spending cuts as part of the stopgap measure to keep the government running in mid-February, right around the time President Obama sends his fiscal 2010 budget to Capitol Hill, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) announced earlier Tuesday. 

The current CR expires March 4. 

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said he intends to cut about $60 billion this year. 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has proposes slashing $78 billion over five years from the Pentagon's budget. 

In the overall spending picture, Dicks backed President Obama's recommendation to freeze non-defense discretionary spending for the next five years because too many cuts could cause damage to the fragile economy. 

"What I worry about is if we make these cuts in discretionary domestic spending then it's going to have a negative effect on the economy," Dicks said. 

He suggested following the president's recommendation to invest in research and development, education and innovation to "drive the unemployment rate down."

"There's going to be a battle [in committee] and we're going to offer amendments," he said. "And the thing is we know that we have to restrain spending but as the deficit commission said, do it after the economy is fully recovered and that's why the freeze idea is a stronger idea."