There are cuts even Sens. Manchin, Nelson, Cornyn and Barrasso would like to avoid. | AP Photos Lawmakers talk cuts but defend pork

Furious at the rapid growth of the national debt, members of Congress insist that they’re ready to swing the budget ax anywhere and everywhere to get the country back on a sound fiscal track.

Everywhere, that is, except their backyards.


So as they bash President Barack Obama’s budget, Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are upset about his proposed cuts to coal subsides. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) wants to protect his state’s agriculture interests, and his fellow Nebraskan, GOP Sen. Mike Johanns, is concerned about cuts to airport grants. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) says everyone will need to feel some budget pain — but he’s weighing how much pain NASA should feel.

And Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has all but declared Obama’s budget DOA in the House — but he’s not so sure about cuts to a second F-35 Joint Strike Fighter engine, which he says will save money. Those engines happen to be made in southwestern Ohio.

It’s the latest sign that much of the $1.1 trillion in spending cuts Obama proposed for the next decade may never be realized — even as budget cut talk dominates Washington. It also shows that lawmakers still can’t figure out how to embrace generic voter hatred of the $12.3 trillion national debt without harming the federal projects their local voters actually like.

“When you get into the details, it’s stickier — it’s harder because every program in the federal government has a group of folks that feel very strongly about it,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Tuesday in the Capitol.

For Republicans, the issue is particularly acute, given that they’ve spent the past two days lambasting Obama for putting forth an “unserious” budget that fails to overhaul Social Security and Medicare and wouldn’t shave enough off the deficit.

Take Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt and the C-17 transport plane as an example. When Obama proposed cutting $2.5 billion from the Missouri-made C-17 last year, Blunt — who was a House member at the time — said the proposed cut showed the president wasn’t serious “about protecting jobs and protecting the country.”

As a senator, Blunt is outspoken in his criticism of Obama’s larger budget but punted when asked about cuts to the C-17 in this year’s proposal.

“I don’t think the president’s budget is realistic enough to be concerned about,” he said, declining to comment further. “I just gave you my answer.”

Other lawmakers are in similarly awkward spots.

Obama’s budget takes aim at coal subsides in an attempt to lessen the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and boost revenue by $2.6 billion over the next decade.

That doesn’t sit right with Barrasso, who said the budget “throws more fuel onto an already raging fiscal fire” yet contended the coal subsidy cuts would devastate an industry in his home state, Wyoming.

“Coal pays billions and billions of dollars in taxes every year and continues to make a significant contribution to the stability of our country,” Barrasso said Tuesday.

Fellow Wyoming Republican Mike Enzi scoffed at the Obama administration’s repeat attempt to recoup $1.2 billion over the next decade for states to restore abandoned coal mines.

“It is a debt of the United States to the states,” said Enzi.

Moderate Democrats are also finding ways to bash the overall budget while defending their parochial interests.

Manchin, who faces reelection next year in rural West Virginia, sharply attacked Obama’s proposal Tuesday, saying it’s “not what the country needs or expects” when it comes to tackling the deficit.

Asked about the proposed cuts to coal, Manchin said: “We shouldn’t be here picking and choosing winners and losers, but fairness. If you want to cut subsidies, cut them — be fair with everybody.”

Indeed, numerous lawmakers made similar arguments, saying that Congress should make across-the-board cuts that take aim at everybody rather than singling out one program or another.

“All programs should be cut, but they should bear the cuts equally,” Illinois GOP Sen. Mark Kirk said when asked about the $125 million cut Obama proposed to a Great Lakes restoration program. “For everyone else’s favorite and for my favorite programs, there should be reductions, but they should be shared equally.”

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he is “realistic” about the need for spending cuts but said, “I hope to be able to restore” some money to the Great Lakes program.

Other critics of some of Obama’s cuts said a budget is about setting the right priorities and that the president made the wrong choices.

Johanns, for one, said it’s “not acceptable” simply to “nibble around the edges of our financial problems.” But, he said, Obama erred in proposing $1.1 billion in cuts to limit grants to small airports.

“I found out long ago — as a mayor, as a governor, as a county commissioner — governing is about setting priorities; this is an important priority for us,” Johanns said.

Nelson, a moderate, has his own beef with the administration for choosing to slash agriculture subsidies and is leaving the door open to pushing for increased funding for agriculture research.

“It has to be proportional,” Nelson said.

But it’s not just Obama’s budget that has gotten some ready for battle. The House GOP budget plan for 2011, which includes several hundred million dollars in cuts to border security, has unnerved border-state Republicans like Cornyn and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl.

Asked whether Congress should cut border security, Kyl said, “Not in my view.”

Cornyn said the country is going through a “painful transition” in which everyone will have to tighten their belts.

But what about restoring $300 million in cuts to NASA, an important constituency in Houston?

“I’ll have to look at the whole package,” he said.

Other major cuts have members of both parties ready to push for more funding, like Obama’s plan to slash $2.5 billion from low-income heating programs, which has alarmed Democrats and several Northeastern moderates. Plus, some Democrats and even Boehner have raised concerns about Obama’s call to terminate the $465 million development of a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Asked about what should be cut, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said, “Anything is on the table,” before smiling and quickly correcting himself. “No, I’m open to responsible ways to cut the deficit.”