GOP says YES to border patrol, nuclear weapons, FBI, military and prisons, and a big NO to healthcare, financial regulation, WIC (food for babies of low income women), education…because the average middle class person or person living below the poverty line doesn’t care about or need those things, right? Babies don’t need that formula, right? As long as we have enough room in our prisons and enough weapons of war, we’re all good!

GOP SEEKS TO SMOOTH ROUGHEST CUTS, AVERT SHUTDOWN

BY ANDREW TAYLOR
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mar 5, 12:26 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans controlling the House are moving to take the roughest edges off across-the-board spending cuts that are just starting to take effect.

Even as the military would bear a $43 billion cut over just seven months, the new GOP measure released Monday would give the Pentagon much-needed funding for readiness. It would also ease the pain felt by critical agencies like the FBI and the Border Patrol.

The effort is part of a huge spending measure released Monday that would fund day-to-day federal operations through September – and head off a potential government shutdown later this month.

The measure would leave in place automatic cuts of 5 percent to domestic agencies and 7.8 percent to the Pentagon ordered Friday by President Barack Obama after months of battling with Republicans over the budget. But the House Republicans’ legislation would award the Defense Department its detailed 2013 budget while other agencies would be frozen in place at 2012 levels.

Senate Democrats want to add more detailed budgets for domestic Cabinet agencies but it will take GOP help to do so. The House measure also denies money sought by Obama and his Democratic allies to implement the signature 2010 laws overhauling the health care system and financial regulation.

After accounting for the across-the-board cuts, domestic agencies would face cuts exceeding 5 percent when compared with last year. But Republicans carved out a host of exemptions seeking to protect especially important functions, such as federal prisons and firefighting efforts in the West, as well as new funding for embassy security and modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The FBI and the Border Patrol would be able to maintain current staffing levels and would not have to furlough employees.

Read the full story here.