WASHINGTON – Food stamp recipients won a surprise reprieve while corporations with large pension enrollments took it on the chin Tuesday when Senate panels began trimming $35 billion from federal spending.

Low-income college students received a $6 billion increase in grants while senators from traditional dairy states girded for a battle to extend a payment program for dairy farmers.

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee was unable to produce an agreement between the conservative and moderate factions of his committee over $10 billion worth of curbs in Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Finance moderates such as Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, pressed to minimize Medicaid cuts while conservatives such as Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., tried to fend off the elimination of a $7 billion fund to encourage insurance companies to offer the new Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., heeding protests from panel members such as Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and Jim Talent, R-Mo., dropped more than $500 million in food stamp cuts from a farm and food subsidy measure. The cuts could have meant a loss of benefits for 300,000 working families.