GOP Leaders Bargain Cuts Through the House
WASHINGTON — The House, which a month ago rejected a compromise bill to reduce spending, reversed course Wednesday and approved a $602-billion measure that would cut or freeze funding for an array of health, education and labor programs -- but a two-vote margin of passage signified the challenge facing Republican leaders in their drive to lower the federal budget deficit.
The bill, which would cut spending on these programs by about $1.4 billion from last year's level, now goes to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain.
The House's 215-213 approval of the bill came a month after the GOP leadership was dealt an embarrassing defeat when 22 of its rank and file joined all Democrats in voting against the measure. That marked the first time since Republicans took control of the chamber a decade ago that the House had rejected a House-Senate compromise spending bill.
On Wednesday, every Democrat again voted no, objecting that the legislation would make the first cut in education spending in a decade and shortchange such programs as aid to low-income families for their heating bills. They also pointed out that spending cuts were being considered just a week after the House passed $94 billion in tax cuts.
Rep. David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the specific cuts in this bill -- along with an expected Republican effort to enact across-the-board reductions in spending before adjourning for the year -- reflected GOP "Scrooge-onomics."
"The holidays are supposed to be a time of generosity -- a time when Santa Claus fills children's stockings," Obey said. "Instead, this Congress is emptying them in order to provide a tax cut that gives 50% of the benefit to people making more than $1 million."
But Republican lawmakers said the education cuts came after years of increases in federal aid to education, and that the bill provided targeted increases to education programs, such as $100 million for an initiative to develop "innovative performance-based compensation systems for teachers and principals who raise student academic achievement."
This time, all but 12 Republicans voted for the measure. But the tweaks that the GOP leaders were forced to make to secure the additional votes underscored the problem they face in trying to complete work on a separate bill that would cut spending by as much as $50 billion over the next five years, increasingly dimming the prospects that they will complete the measure before adjourning for the year.
