Washington ? Republicans now running the House are barely touching Congress’ own generous budget even as they take a cleaver to many domestic agencies.

A new GOP proposal would cut domestic agencies’ spending by 9 percent on average through September, when the current budget year ends.

If that plan becomes law, it could lead to layoffs of tens of thousands of federal employees, big cuts to heating and housing subsidies for the poor, reduced grants to schools and law enforcement agencies, and a major hit to the Internal Revenue Service’s budget.

Congress, on the other hand, would get nicked by only 2 percent, or $94 million.

Recent hefty increases to the congressional budget — engineered by Democrats when they held power in the House from 2007-2010 — would remain largely in place under a plan announced Thursday by the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky.

The plan, developed in close consultation with Republican Speaker John Boehner’s office, would cut Congress’ budget less than any other domestic spending bill, except for the one covering the Department of Homeland Security.

All 12 spending bills left unfinished by Democrats will go into a single, enormous measure that Republicans promise to bring up the week of Feb. 14.

“Charity begins at home, and Congress should lead the way with cuts to their own budget,” said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based watchdog group. “Instead they’re protecting their bottom line while slashing everyone else’s.”

The cut to Congress gets a little deeper, to 3.5 percent, if it were imposed for a full calendar year instead of the seven months that will remain in the current budget year. But so, too, would the cuts to other agencies — growing to 16 percent.

When Democrats took over Congress in 2007, they inherited a $3.8 billion budget for Congress. That includes money for members’ and leadership offices, House and Senate committees, and support agencies such as the Capitol Police and the Congressional Budget Office, which crunches numbers for lawmakers as they consider legislation.

Since then, that budget has risen to $4.7 billion, a 23 percent increase over four years. The biggest jump, 11 percent, occurred when President Barack Obama signed a Democratic-written spending bill just after he took office in 2009.

Among the first items of business when the GOP regained the House was to pass a bipartisan measure to cut office and committee budgets by 5 percent. That move prompted much self-congratulation even though it would produce just $35 million in savings. For context, the deficit is climbing toward $1.5 trillion this year.

Republicans bristle at the suggestion that Congress is getting off easy. They promise further cuts when the Senate pitches in and when the two chambers work out joint items such as budgets for the Capitol Police, Library of Congress and the Government Accountability Office.