The only vital difference between the House and Senate plans is Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate plan places a cap on spending which includes war spending, and the House plan allows the discretionary spending cap to be adjusted to pay for the war. So, while the House has been saying the Senate uses illusory savings from winding down the theaters in the war, their plan actually includes provisions to allow those operations to be funded above the spending cap. Therefore, the savings are not illusory per se.
Click here for CBO scoring of Reid’s plan.
Click here for CBO scoring of Boehner’s plan.
If the Iraq/Afghanistan savings were included in the House plan, the two bills would be nearly identical.
