Congressional Republicans want to reduce fiscal 2011 funding by $61 billion. The Obama adminstration and Senate Democrats believe these cuts are too large. As a result, a two-week continuing resultion was passed to allow the sides to reach an agreement on funding the government for the rest of the year.

I recently put the $61 billion in cuts in perspective by comparing it to this year’s projections for total federal spending, the deficit, and interest on the debt. Cato’s Multimedia Producer, Caleb Brown, turned my chart into a slick video:

The Congressional Budget Office just announced that the federal government posted a $223 billion deficit in February, which is the largest monthly deficit ever. The Washington Times points out that “Last month’s federal deficit is nearly four times as large as the spending cuts House Republicans have passed in their spending bill, and is more than 30 times the size of Senate Democrats’ opening bid of $6 billion.”