Committees in the House are busily marking up legislation to avoid the scheduled cuts that lawmakers approved as part of the 2011 Budget Control Act. Those automatic reductions to domestic and defense spending — agreed to by both parties during the effort to raise the nation’s borrowing limit — will go into effect on January 2, 2013 unless Congress can agree on a proposal to lower the national deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

Since the demise of the super committee tasked with identifying the savings, the GOP has relied on the House-passed Budget Resolution to initiate a budget reconciliation process that would eliminate or disperse the $600 billion of proposed reductions to military spending to other federal agencies. Now, in a memo from the Republican leadership to its members, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), spell out how they plan to generate “savings” in mandatory programs that “would first be used to offset the cost (approximately $78 billion) of replacing the automatic across-the-board discretionary spending cuts” and “further reduce the deficit.”

As it turns out, Republicans’ plan to protect the ballooning defense budget will come at a significant cost to lower-income Americans, women, and children, as well as the nation’s financial security. ThinkProgress has compiled a table of just some of the consequences of the GOP’s cuts:

CUT	CONSEQUENCE
$11.9 billion from the Prevention & Public Health Fund: Would eliminate a special fund designed to help communities fight chronic conditions like heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.	Chronic conditions are “responsible for 7 of 10 deaths among Americans each year and account for 75 percent of the nation’s health spending.” Investing in prevention will help reduce national health spending on costly acute care.
$600 million by reducing Medicaid enrollment: Would repeal the Medicaid Maintenance of Effort (MOE) provision, which requires states to maintain their existing enrollment eligibility in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or risk losing federal funding.	The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that allowing states to kick people off the Medicaid rolls before the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented would cause 400,000 people to lose their Medicaid and CHIP coverage. Two thirds of those dropped from coverage would be children. By 2016, the number of those expected to lose CHIP coverage will climb to 1.7 million people, with 700,000 left uninsured.
$43.9 billion from recapturing exchange subsidies: Families or individuals who are receiving affordability credits through the health care exchanges would have to pay back the government if their incomes fluctuate throughout the year.	The change could dissuade people from purchasing insurance, disproportionately impact women (who are more likely to experience income fluctuations), and could even increase costs for the entire population.
$33 billion by cutting food stamps: Via a handful of changes, the GOP would cut about $33 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), i.e. food stamps.	The cuts would knock two million people off of food stamps entirely, while reducing benefits for 44 million others. In September, every beneficiary of food stamps would see their benefits cut by $57.
$11.7 billion by restricting “categorical eligibility” in the food stamp program: States would be prevented from automatically enrolling families in food stamps if they qualify for other assistance programs.	The bill would knock about 1.8 million low-income people per year off of food aid and end automatic enrollment in free school meals for 280,000 children.
$22 billion by repealing the resolution authority: The authority for the government to dismantle failing financial firms, which was included in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, would be eliminated.	Without this power, the government would have to resort to the ad hoc bailouts of 2008, as it would be have no process to unwind a failed mega-bank. The savings here are also fabricated, based on a bizarre Congressional Budget Office score that has little basis in reality.
$2.8 billion by eliminating foreclosure prevention: The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), one of the Obama administration’s key foreclosure prevention programs, would be terminated.	HAMP has been underwhelming due to design flaws and bank intransigence, but the New York Federal Reserve estimates that 3.6 million foreclosures will occur in the next two years, while billions of dollars are still available for HAMP to actually make a difference.
$5.4 billion by cutting the budget of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: In addition to ending the CFPB’s independent stream of funding, the bill would cut the Bureau’s budget by more than half.	The CFPB can craft regulations for any financial product, and is already working on new rules aimed at reining in credit card, mortgage, and student loan abuses.

Last night, Rep. Jason Altmire lost his Democratic primary battle against fellow congressman Mark Critz. Altmire, who currently represents the state’s 4th District, was forced into a primary challenge against Critz after redistricting. Critz represented the original 12th District.

Altmire was considered the early favorite, but soon Critz was boosted by the support of several unions — including the SEIU and the United Steelworkers — who were upset that Altmire voted against the Affordable Care Act. Critz took office after it had already passed; he has said he opposes the bill but will not vote to repeal it.

In the race for the Democratic nomination in the 17th District, progressive attorney Matt Cartwright defeated Rep. Tim Holden. Cartwright had frequently attacked Holden for his vote against Obamacare, at one point claiming Holden was “voting with the insurance companies and against health care reform.”

-Zachary Bernstein

Mitt Romney reiterated his critique of Obamacare during a “victory” address celebrating his primary night wins in Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New York, last night. The speech sounded like a recitation of his usual misrepresentations, but included one particularly surprising nugget:

ROMNEY: With Obamacare fully installed, government will come to control half the economy, and we will have effectively ceased to be a free enterprise society. This President is putting us on a path where our lives will be ruled by bureaucrats and boards, commissions and czars. He’s asking us to accept that Washington knows best – and can provide all.

The charge is particularly disingenuous because Romney almost certainly knows that government is already heavily invested in health care and that the Affordable Care Act — much like his own reforms in Massachusetts — doesn’t dramatically expand its reach. Instead, it builds on the existing public/private partnership, in which public health already comprises more than 40 percent of the nation’s health care spending:

As the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded, after the law’s initial boost of coverage expansion in the first decade (as the uninsured enter the health care system), “the increases and decreases in the federal budgetary commitment to health care stemming from this legislation would roughly balance out, so that there would be no significant change in that commitment.” By 2014, private sector growth is projected to accelerate — thanks to health care reform — but even then, “private health insurance is anticipated to account for roughly 31 percent of national health spending, or about the same share as was expected without enactment of the Affordable Care Act,” actuaries at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid estimate. “For 2011–13, government outlays (averaging 5.2 percent growth) are projected to roughly maintain a 45-percent share of total health spending.” The public/private balance, in other words, remains the same.

Remember that Romney sold his 2006 Massachusetts reforms by arguing that the state could take the the tax dollars it’s already spending on uncompensated care and — together with additional federal funding approved by the Bush administration — expand and subsidize private coverage for the uninsured. The Affordable Care Act does something very similar, while also raising additional revenue to pay for the law and reduce the federal deficit. So if using tax-payer dollars to provide care to the uninsured constitutes “government control,” then Romney himself could be considered a fan of the so-called nanny state.