2011 budget cuts revealed

WASHINGTON, April 12 (UPI) -- Budgets for transit, Pentagon construction and food programs would be cut for the rest of 2011 under the spending plan the U.S. Congress revealed Tuesday.

The nearly $40 billion in budget reductions in the plan represents the single largest cut ever made to the federal budget in one year, CNNMoney.com reported.

The document provided a first look at the $38 billion in spending cuts congressional negotiators and President Obama agreed to Friday just hours before a government shutdown.

Hard hit are the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Justice, Labor and Health and Human Services, all losing billions of dollars in funding. A review indicates every broad category of government -- except for the departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense beyond construction projects -- sustained some level of funding reduction.

The plan includes nearly a $3 billion reduction for high-speed rail funds, along with roughly $3 billion less for highway construction and a $6.2 billion cut in Defense Department construction projects.

The Women, Infants and Children's program that uses federal money to subsidize food and nutrition needs of children from low-income families will lose more than $500 million, while programs that help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases would be cut by $1 billion, CNNMoney.com said.

Grants to states that help pay for drinking water infrastructure projects would see a $1 billion cut.

The bill also would cut $377 million from the U.S. contribution to the United Nations, and lower the operating expenses line item for U.S. Agency for International Development by $39 million. Nearly $1 billion would be cut from a HUD-run community development fund.

"My committee went line by line through agency budgets this weekend to negotiate and craft deep but responsible reductions in virtually all areas of government," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said in a statement.

Congress will vote on the measure later this week.