Analysis of HR1

Florida PIRG

It’s difficult to imagine how cuts to Pell Grants, food safety or clean drinking water come before subsidies to BP or advertising for fast food and underwear. And yet, that’s exactly what the House resolution has done.

The chart below compares a sample of spending cuts in the House budget resolution with recommendations from three reports produced by U.S. PIRG. The reductions detailed in any one of the reports amount to more than the reductions called for in the resolution passed by the House.

PUBLIC PRIORITIES SLASHED

• Pell Grants to increase access to college for 9.4 million Americans cut by $5.7 billion.
• Funding eliminated for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to track and inform the public about dangerous products.
• $88.4 million less for food safety inspectors, which ensure that the nation’s egg, poultry, and meat supply is safe and wholesome.
• A 44% cut in funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to police the big banks, mortgage and credit card companies and guard against deceptive practices.
• All funding for high-speed rail eliminated.
• A billion dollar cut in funding for community health centers to provide medical care in underserved areas.
• A $32 million reduction in funding to clean up toxic waste sites.
• Fund to protect clean drinking water reduced by almost $2 billion.
• $392 million cut to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the main fund to preserve our national parks, forests and wilderness areas.

WASTEFUL SPENDING INTACT (cost over 5 years):

• $19 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industry.
• An additional $158 million for deepwater drilling research. Oil and gas companies can pay for their own research.
• $500 billion in tax loopholes that permit companies to ship their profits overseas and hide them in offshore tax havens—including 83 of the top 100 publicly traded companies.
• $185 billion in orders for obsolete military equipment.
• $1 billion for trade associations for multinational corporations to market their products overseas.
• $34 billion in Homeland Security contracts that have been plagued with waste, abuse and mismanagement going back to 2001.
• $16 billion to purchase “Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles,” an amphibious technology that according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates “is 14 years behind schedule and is highly unreliable.”
• Billions lost on 55,000 unused and underused government buildings.