House defeats health, education spending cut bill

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives on
Thursday delivered a surprise blow to Republican spending-cut
initiatives by defeating a huge health, education and labor
funding bill that aimed to trim $1.4 billion in spending on the
programs this year.

By a vote of 224-209, the House defeated the $142.5 billion
bill. When coupled with spending on mandatory programs, the
cost of the bill would have been $602 billion this fiscal year.

Twenty-two of the normally well-disciplined House
Republicans joined with all Democrats to vote to kill the bill.
Even holding the vote open for an extended period, a tactic
employed in the past by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
to twist arms, failed to secure a win.

The majority-party Republicans suffered the defeat even
after pushing back an attempt by the Senate to include $8
billion in emergency funds to fight an avian flu outbreak.
House conservatives worried about the high cost.

Rep. David Obey, the senior Democrat on the House
Appropriations Committee who had called the spending cuts to
social programs “a disgrace,” said he could remember only one
other time in the past 10 years that the House had defeated an
appropriations bill.

Stunned Republicans were left wondering whether the vote
also would worsen chances of passage this week of a $50-billion
spending cut bill that aimed to reduce spending on food stamps,
Medicaid, student loans and child welfare. That vote was
already postponed once last week as Republican leaders tried
and failed to muster enough votes for passage.

Following the House vote, Appropriations Committee Chairman
Jerry Lewis, a California Republican, said the spending cuts
combined with a hard line on funding lawmakers’ pet projects
for their home districts was “too much for them to swallow.”

The bill made significant cuts to job training, children’s
health, Head Start preschool programs for poor children, the
Centers for Disease Control and drug abuse programs.

Even President George W. Bush’s signature education
initiative, “No Child Left Behind,” would have suffered deep
cuts.

While these “discretionary” programs were being cut,
spending on the mandatory programs would have risen by $106
billion, or 30 percent from last year’s level under the bill.
Republicans and Democrats have recognized the need to reverse
the explosive growth of these programs.

During a House-Senate negotiating session on the bill
earlier this week, there were indications the measure would
face difficulties in the Senate as well.

Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who
oversees this spending bill, told his colleagues, “I may vote
against it” because of the funding cuts.

Before the House vote, Rep. Curt Weldon, a Republican from
Pennsylvania, reflected conservative concerns about the need to
cut federal spending.

He said his constituents have been telling him that “These
are difficult times. We’ve had tremendous outlays in
expenditures with Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq and
that we really need to hold the line on spending.”

But several provisions troubled Republicans.

Rep. C.W. Bill Young, a former chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee, said language added to the bill by
the Senate “would abrogate” contracts with Medicare providers
throughout the country.

Young said several Republicans also were worried about the
low level of funds for health facilities in rural areas.