WASHINGTON — On the second day of a rare weekend session, House and Senate leaders Sunday approved the first significant spending cuts to domestic social programs in nearly a decade and agreed to attach a proposal allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to a bill funding the U.S. military.
Rushing to complete its business before leaving town for the holidays, the House met past midnight and was expected early today to take up the military spending bill, which includes the drilling measure, and the budget cuts.
The Senate has in the past blocked efforts to open the Alaskan refuge to energy exploration. But because the proposal is now part of a bill funding troops in wartime, President Bush's long-sought goal of allowing drilling in the refuge will be politically tougher for senators to oppose.
"Obviously, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think I had the votes," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said Sunday as partisan tensions ran high over the maneuver to put one of the nation's most contentious environmental issues in a defense bill. The Senate is expected to vote on the drilling measure this week.
House and Senate negotiators also agreed to cut $41.6 billion from Medicare, Medicaid, student loans and other domestic programs over the next five years -- a measure that Republicans describe as part of a new, more determined effort to reduce the federal budget deficit, which totaled $319 billion for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Democrats contended that the savings would be wiped out by billions of dollars in tax cuts that Republicans hope to pass early next year.
The White House considered the budget cuts and Arctic drilling among its priorities for 2005. But some of Congress' final actions this year are not squaring entirely with the White House's wishes.
The military spending bill included $29 billion for the hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast -- more than Bush sought -- and $3.8 billion to prepare for a flu outbreak -- less than the White House wanted. The military spending bill also includes an across-the-board spending cut in most federal programs, designed to offset the new hurricane relief.
The decision to attach Arctic drilling to the $453-billion Pentagon spending bill led to a clash between Frist and his Democratic counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
