WASHINGTON — South Carolina’s U.S. senators are pushing a
plan to slice spending on everything from highway projects to
Medicare drug benefits — $125 billion in all — to offset the cost of
Hurricane Katrina relief.
Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, both Republicans, joined five
other Senate budget hawks Tuesday in calling for the cuts, which
don’t sit well with some Senate leaders, who have proposed only $50
billion in cuts.
In September, Congress approved $65 billion to clean up areas of
the Gulf Coast devastated by Katrina. Requests for more aid are
likely as recovery costs grow.
“Of all the Americans I’ve spoken to in South Carolina and around
the country, they expect us to make difficult choices,” said DeMint,
who acknowledged that some of the proposed reductions won’t be
received well.
The cuts, which would be made over two years, include:
• A 5 percent cut in all federal
spending except that which affects national security
• A freeze on cost-of-living pay
increases for all federal employees except law enforcement and
military personnel
• A two-year delay in
implementation of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit
• Elimination of some projects in
the $286 billion highway bill approved this summer.
The proposal unveiled Tuesday particularly angered Democrats, who
say the GOP group is using hurricane spending as an excuse to ax
programs for the poor. U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said the
proposal would unfairly burden poor and middle-class Americans.
“We ask them to make sacrifices,” Clyburn said, “while we are
still giving tax cuts to millionaires who don’t need it.”
But Graham said tax cuts boost the economy, which adds to federal
coffers. “The tax cuts are part of the solution not part of the
problem.”
