As we all know, the Republican party is on a reckless mission to cut spending to establish their belt-tightening seriousness and fiscally-conservative bonafieds. John Boehner even went as far as to say "Read my lips, we're going to cut spending." They aren't on a mission to cut just any old spending though. They want to cut specific things. Not necessarily things that make sense to cut though. In fact in most cases their proposed cuts don't make a lick of sense. No, they want to cut things they simply don't like.
The Democrats have so far agreed to meet the Republicans part of the way in cutting spending in an effort to avoid a government shutdown, but they hold the philosophy that if we're going to cut spending, we should at least cut things that actually make some sense to cut. Even the boldest of budget-slashing proposals the Democrats have offered to the Republicans in exchange for a little cooperation have been rejected because the Democrat's proposals do not include cuts for things like NPR, PBS, or Planned Parenthood. Nor do they place new restrictions on abortions or alter the language of the Affordable Care Act.
The battle isn't so much about the amount of spending we're going to cut at this point as it is what programs will be cut. Some of the things Republicans want to cut won't even reduce spending either. In some cases, they will flat-out increase federal spending. Apparently no one ever taught them that its better to spend money on bandages than to leave an open wound unattended so it may fester.
ThinkProgress provides a few examples
Sec. 4013 — Prohibits funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Planned parenthood provides services more efficiently and each dollar spent on contraception saves taxpayers multiple dollars down the line. For instance, it’s estimated that pushing contraceptive care patients from Planned Parenthood to other clinics would “cost the government an additional $174 million a year.”Sec. 1591 — Prohibits funding for needle exchange programs: As an example, the cost to prevent a single HIV infection by needle exchange “has been calculated at $4,000 to $12,000, considerably less than the estimated $190,000 (listed in 1997 dollars) medical costs of treating a person infected with HIV.”Sec. 4020 — Prohibits funds to take any action to effect or implement the disestablishment, closure or realignment of the US Joint Forces Command: Closing the Joint Forces Command, which “employs more contractors than troops” and which Defense Secretary Gates says is no longer necessary, could save up to $240 million per year.Sec. 4051 — Prohibits funds for implementing a provision specific to the State of Texas in the “Education Job Fund” : This provision prevents Texas from collecting money from the education jobs bill passed last year unless it maintains its own rate of current education funding. Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) has previously stuck federal education money into his state’s Rainy Day Fund. Blocking the provision amounts to giving Texas more than $800 million with no oversight.Sec. 4012 — Bans funding for the Department of Education regulations on Gainful Employment: These regulations would restrict federal funding for subprime schools, many of which make 90 percent of their revenue from the federal government, while accounting for nearly half of student loan defaults.
Conclusion -- The Republicans, fundamentally, have absolutely no idea what they're doing or how to effectively govern. End of story. I wouldn't trust them to run a hotdog stand.Their entire economic plan is comprised of spending-cuts and they can't even get that part right.