Budget "reductions"? pass the House

From here:

By ANDREW TAYLOR
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans sweated out a victory on a major budget cut bill in the wee hours Friday, salvaging a major pillar of their agenda despite divisions within the party and nervousness among moderates that the vote could cost them in next year's elections.

The bill, passed 217-215 after a 25-minute-long roll call, makes modest but politically painful cuts across an array of programs for the poor, students and farmers.

The victory on the deficit-control bill came hours after an embarrassing and rare defeat on a $602 billion spending bill for education, health care and job training programs this year. The earlier 224-209 vote halted what had been a steady drive to complete annual appropriations bills freezing many agency budgets.

The broader budget bill would slice almost $50 billion from the deficit by the end of the decade by curbing rapidly growing benefit programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies. Republicans said reining in such programs whose costs spiral upward each year automatically s the first step to restoring fiscal discipline.

"This unchecked spending is growing faster than our economy, faster than inflation, and far beyond our means to sustain it," said Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa.

Both bills are part of a campaign by Republican leaders to burnish their party's budget-cutting credentials as they try to reduce a deficit swelled by spending on the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina.

The budget plan squeaked through after an all-day search by Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo., to round up votes from reluctant moderates and other lawmakers uneasy with the bill.

House leaders now face arduous talks with the Senate, which passed a much more modest plan earlier this month. Negotiators face difficult negotiations over Arctic drilling, Medicaid and student loans, among other issues

Fourteen Republicans voted "no," including several who had harshly condemned the bill in the days leading up to the vote. Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn. - who faces a challenging Senate race - cast the decisive vote. Then, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, only reluctantly followed with the final "aye" vote. He was upset over a decision by Hastert to drop a long-sought provision to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, known as ANWR, to oil drilling and sent a clear signal he would not vote for a final bill without the drilling plan.

And:

Those changes came on top of concessions last week when Republican leaders, to appease moderates in their party, dropped provisions to open ANWR to oil drilling and to allow states to lift a moratorium on oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Something how Congressman Kennedy in effect threatened not to vote for the bill should ANWR provisions had been left in it. If ANWR was such a "nonissue" on both sides, it shouldn't have made a difference if it ended up in the bill. I still say it was an irresponsible mistake not to leave it in, especially given the fact that it would also have allowed states to lift the moratoriums imposed on offshore drilling.

Nonetheless, on balance this can only be hailed as a victory for the conservative agenda. What this story does not definitively state, however, is whether these are actual cuts, or simply reductions in the rate of growth of these programs; the latter of which the MSM and the democrat left have freely labelled "cuts" in the past and have been successful in portraying them as such.

It should be noted that Minnesota's own Congressman Jim Ramstad joined the cadre of RINOs (Shays, Nancy Johnson and Simmons of Connecticut; and Tim Johnson of Illinois) in voting "nay" on the bill.

(Filed under Pass the Pork, RINOs)


***UPDATE*** 4:22pm CST

In a campaign letter received today, Mark Kennedy wrote

“Washington shouldn’t have a blank check, and as a CPA and businessman I’m happy to see us act to reduce our federal deficit. This bill reduces spending in a way that reflects our Minnesota values and sets priorities. We owe it to our children to lower the deficit.



“Only in Washington would you hear slowing the rate of spending increases called a ‘cut.’ This bill preserves important student financial aid, Medicaid and safety net programs while providing low income heating aid.” (emphasis mine)



“It’s never easy to restrain the growth of spending, even modestly. There are so many special interest groups advocating for more spending. But my job is to stand up for hard working, taxpaying families in Minnesota. That’s what this bill does. It protects important programs while getting spending under control. The answer is not higher taxes and even more government spending.”