Over the weekend, House Republicans began a coordinated campaign to defend the caucus' "$100 billion" worth of proposed cuts to the fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget. Since the proposal's release, Republicans have been taking flak for targeting non-security discretionary programs, which only make up about one-sixth of federal spending. When asked about this on the various Sunday talk shows, Republican leaders demurred, claiming defense spending is also on the chopping block. They're not telling the truth.

While the new Republican House seems obsessed with cutting federal spending back to pre-stimulus levels, it can be easy to forget that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is still spending money. In fact, there’s still about $100 billion in stimulus contract, grant and loan money that has yet to go out the door. And the Recovery Board, which is in charge of displaying the Recovery Act recipient reports, is still at work. This week, in a big win for transparency advocates, the Board’s chairman, Earl Devaney, announced his support for multi-tier reporting, or reporting beyond prime and sub-recipients.

In a surprise move, a vote to extend expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act fell short in the House yesterday. Three controversial provisions of the intelligence law are set to expire Feb. 28.

Remember back in September of last year, when the House Republicans released the “Pledge to America,” stating their agenda should they win the House in coming election? If not, here was one line which stuck out to us: “we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone....” Now that they are in control of the House, Republicans are quickly working to make good on that promise. Today, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released their new spending plan for fiscal year 2011, which contains cuts of... $35 billion. Looks like it isn’t quite as easy to cut spending as the new House majority thought.