After all, is only 1 percent of what the government put out this year.
The number of security agents at airports will not be reduced. National Park camps not closed. There will still be enough meat inspectors to avoid the temporary closure of the plant. disadvantaged schools will not see cuts in federal aid. And the hard cuts to subsidies for community action agencies serving the poor are being produced.
Basically, things that most people expect that the government will not change greatly if Congress approves the cuts announced Tuesday, the details of that deal later in the evening he held up federal operations .
For starters, the budget cuts come after two years of generous increases granted to the national accounts when the Democrats controlled Congress and the White House. And overall, only 38 billion U.S. dollars of the $ 3. 8000000000000 government will spend at all this year, including Social Security and other retirement programs. If the government were a family living on $ 60,000 a year, which equals a cut of $ 600.
The Democrats had earlier warned the original House measure - which have cut more than $ 60 billion - that have draconian effects including general exit permits federal employees, temporary closure of meat processing plants, delays in processing social security applications and a large cut in the maximum Pell Grant for college. The most stringent cuts originally passed the House have been reversed, and the maximum Pell Grant will remain $ 5,550 for the following academic year.
Remaining are items such as $ 14 billion in cuts to funding bills before the Congress, a cut of $ 2.9 billion to the initiative of President Barack Obama's high-speed trains and 812 million U.S. dollars for the construction of new buildings Justice and other federal buildings.
But there will be more Pell grants for summer school. The local police chiefs will be harder to win federal grants for equipment upgrades and training for emergency preparedness - which were reduced by $ 1.2 billion. nonprofit groups seeking to open new health centers in the community will have $ 600,000,000 less than competition. And it is more difficult for rural people seeking donations to build new plants water and wastewater treatment. Subsidies for them were reduced by $ 1 billion.
These cuts do not seem to be the end of the world for many, however, that the government faces a deficit of 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars for the fiscal year.
"It's a step away from the daily lives of most people," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Moreover, it appears that many of the cuts officially unveiled on Tuesday are illusory. Nearly $ 18 billion - slightly less than half - involve simply mopping up pools of propagation of unused money in the budget. While still count as cuts, money from the reservoirs can be used to support the budgets of the agency's day to day and other programs such as health research. It is true that these cuts do not reduce the deficit.
"There are a lot of money here it is ... the expenditure was not about to walk out the door, so the impact will be smaller than expected based on the assumption that the size the cuts were "the Democrat said Scott Lilly budget experts on the left Center for American Progress.
But Lilly and others warn that the cuts will impact other time. Postpone the construction of federal buildings results in higher maintenance costs. The cuts to subsidies for water and sewerage services: the accumulation of such projects will only get bigger.
And, more immediately, the Legal Services Corporation, which provides legal aid to those who can not afford it, serving fewer people. The same would be true for job training programs, community health centers and a mentoring program that children of people in jail.
The bill is just the first round. Republicans are moving to adopt a broader budget plan Friday that calls for budget cuts - including Medicare and Medicaid - and a deeper round of cuts applied to the budgets of the agencies included in the pending bill for the next six months of government expenditure. .
In the next round will be harder to protect programs like heating aid for the poor and subsidies for air transport of waste of money to rural airports. But many groups of lawmakers and interest to be treated.