House Approves Budget Process Reform; Focuses on Spending Cuts

Summary 

On January 5, 2011, the House of Representatives adopted a new rules package for the 112^th Congress, which focuses largely on controlling federal government spending. The package changes the current pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) spending rules to a “cut-as-you-go” (CUTGO) approach, provides new authorities for the House Budget Committee chairman, and eliminates highway spending guarantees. Furthermore, House leaders have recently pledged to reduce the federal budget by $100 billion, in part by setting federal fiscal year (FY) 2011 spending at FY 2008 levels.