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WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Lawmakers can't always look to non-defense discretionary spending for cuts to spending the Democratic co-chairwoman of the supercommittee said Wednesday. The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction met in the open Wednesday to discuss discretionary outlays, security and non-security issues.
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"Non-defense discretionary spending represents less than one-fifth of total federal spending. Listening to the debates here in [Washington] D.C. over the last few months, you would think this small piece of pie was a whole lot bigger," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said. "Congress has gone to this relatively small pot with cuts and spending caps again and again while leaving many other pieces of the budget essentially untouched, including the law that created this joint committee, which cut roughly $800 billion in discretionary spending."
While non-defense discretionary programs were relatively the same in 2011 as in 2001, Murray said, "mandatory programs increased, defense spending increased and revenues plummeted."
If the panel is to work together on a bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit, she said, "we need to keep in mind the cuts that have already been made, the role discretionary spending plays in our overall deficit and debt problem, and the impact irresponsible slashing could have on our economic recovery and middle class families across the country."
The supercommittee, which has had a number of closed-door meetings and four open meetings since September, faces a Nov. 23 deadline to formally propose legislation that Congress would have to vote on without attaching any amendments by Dec. 23. If it fails to reach agreement to trim borrowing by at least $1.2 trillion through 2021, automatic spending cuts, including defense, of an equal amount would be triggered in January 2013.
Co-chairman Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said he found common ground with his Democratic co-chairwoman but said he has seen "huge run-ups in our discretionary spending since [President Obama] has come to office. This is not the forum to debate the policies, but I think the numbers speak for themselves."
Lawmakers know discretionary spending is roughly 40 percent of the budget and shrinking, Hensarling said, while entitlement programs are roughly 60 percent of the budget and growing.
"So to put this in even a larger context, under the Budget Control Act, we collectively have a goal of $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction," he said, "[and] we have a duty to provide recommendations in legislative language that will significantly improve the short-term and long-term fiscal imbalance of the federal government."
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are urging the panel to think outside the box and pursue an agreement to cut $3 trillion from the federal budget in the next decade through significant reductions to federal health programs, including Medicare, and through as much as $1.3 trillion in new taxes.
Aides said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., told colleagues in a closed-door meeting Tuesday they should pursue a plan that would raise taxes, raise the Medicare eligibility age and use a stricter measure of inflation to calculate Social Security benefits -- ideas Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, were discussing before budget talks broke down during the summer, The Washington Post said.
The panel's lone witness Wednesday, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf told members the cuts that would be imposed if the supercommittee cannot reach agreement would take a big chunk out of discretionary spending. And, he said, the reductions would be felt across the economy, potentially affecting infrastructure projects, higher education, basic research, and state and local governments.
"So, over time cuts in discretionary spending reduce in general the services that the American public receives," Elmendorf said. "Those cutbacks have a variety of human costs. They can also have economic costs depending on the nature of the cut back."
