WASHINGTON - The Republican-controlled US House of Representative has passed legislation to replace a looming 10 per cent cut to the military budget with cuts to domestic programs such as food stamps and health care.
The partisan 218-199 vote sends the measure to the Senate, where it's a dead letter with Democratic leaders, who insist on keeping the automatic cuts in place until Republicans agree to a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts to address the nation's deficit woes.
The automatic spending cuts, totalling $US110 billion ($F200.29 billion) next year, are punishment for the failure of last year's deficit-reduction "supercommittee" to strike a deal. Lawmakers in both parties want to avoid the automatic cuts, but Democrats are strongly opposed to the GOP approach, which slices more than $US300 billion ($F546.2 billion) from domestic programs.