As another federal funding deadline looms on March 18, congressional Democrats and Republicans are far apart on spending levels for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year. Construction industry officials say spending cuts are all but inevitable. They hope an eventual compromise won’t have reductions that inflict as much pain on infrastructure programs as the cuts in a bill that the House recently approved.

“Everybody agrees that there’s going to be cuts,” says Andrew Goldberg, the American Institute of Architects’ senior director of federal relations. The question is how deep the reductions will be, Goldberg observes.