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House bill cuts labor, education spending

The House's budget bill is essentially a spending freeze, but adding new programs forces others to be cut or eliminated.

WASHINGTON - Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House.

The measure, which passed 250-151, contains $142.5-billion in spending under Congress' control for labor, health and education programs. That's essentially a freeze at current levels.

But new demands, including $870-million to administer the new Medicare prescription drug program, have forced cuts in a number of programs.

The cuts include the elimination of 48 programs whose current budgets total $10-billion. Among the programs to be eliminated is the Healthy Communities Access Program, currently funded at $83-million, which helps communities offer health care to the uninsured.

Also eliminated is the $205-million budget for an Education Department grant program targeted at low-income and underachieving schools.

Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, who led the floor effort to get the bill passed, said the bill's program terminations and other cuts were used to fund high-priority items such as Pell Grants and the budget to run the Medicare drug program.

The cuts are the result of tight budgets for federal programs outside of the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. Congress hewed to Bush's demands when passing its budget in April and is implementing an almost 1 percent cut to domestic programs through 11 spending bills.

In practice, that translates to an 84 percent cut - from $300-million down to $47-million - in training programs for doctors and nurses, and $806-million in cuts to Bush's No Child Left Behind education initiative, a more than 3 percent drop. Grants for local community-action agencies that help the poor would be cut in half, to $320-million.

In a high-profile vote Thursday, lawmakers turned back an effort to slash public broadcasting subsidies by $100-million, demonstrating the enduring political strength of the Public Broadcasting Service, whose supporters rallied behind popular programs such as Sesame Street, Postcards From Buster and The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.

WASHINGTON - Impotence drugs such as Viagra would not be covered by Medicaid and Medicare, the government health programs for the poor and the aged, under new prohibitions approved by the House on Friday.

By a 285-121 vote, the House approved an amendment by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, to stop the government from paying for the drugs. King said his amendment would save taxpayers $105-million next year alone.

The Senate has yet to act on the measure.

[Last modified June 25, 2005, 00:35:14]