The spending bill Congress passed shows $1.2 trillion in budget cuts that weren’t supposed to happen are now part of the political landscape.
Lawmakers approved the so-called continuing resolution March 21 averting a government shutdown while giving a handful of agencies more flexibility to meet the mandated reductions under sequestration/.../
“The administration and military leaders pounded the ways these cuts are unacceptable and damage national security, and it didn’t work,” Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, said in an interview. “The evidence is that Congress didn’t believe them or didn’t care/.../”
If Americans don’t feel much pain, however, proponents of less government spending in Congress are likely to emerge with a stronger hand in budget negotiations, Harrison said.
“If you don’t have a big outcry by June or July, when this will be fully in effect, then this lower level of funding is going to stick,” Harrison said.