Community development block grants, key to many small-town projects, face 40 percent cut in House

House Republicans have proposed a $44.1 billion transportation and housing bill that would cut about 40 percent of the money for community development block grants, which support economic development, housing and infrastructure in many rural towns. President Obama had asked for $2.79 million for the 2014 fiscal year, David Rogers reports for Poiltico. The bill would give the program $1.6 billion; it received $2.7 million in 1975, when Republican President Gerald Ford started it, Rogers notes.

"CDBG’s fall is the most striking example yet of what’s become a genuinely historic rollback of domestic discretionary spending," Rogers writes. "The first across-the-board cuts ordered in March under sequestration brought appropriations down to $984 billion. A second round, this winter could take discretionary spending down to $967 billion. And in the midst of this, House Republicans are proposing to shift about $54 billion from domestic programs to defense-related spending."

The $24.9 billion provided in the bill for public and Indian housing is $953 million below what Congress had approved a few months ago, and is a $2.8 billion, or a 10 percent cut, from Obama’s 2014 request, reports Rogers. "When the Senate Appropriations Committee meets Thursday morning, Democrats are expected to go in the opposite direction, approving a discretionary spending target of $1.058 trillion for the coming year." (Read more)