House passes spending measure

WASHINGTON – A must-pass bill covering about one-sixth of the federal budget swept through the House on Wednesday. A sizable chunk of Republicans joined virtually all Democrats in approving spending increases for education, veterans and the AIDS battle in Africa.

The 286-140 vote – with 57 Republicans voting in favor – was a pleasant surprise for Democrats who expected far less GOP support. The bill had much to please the rank and file, including Republican moderates, even though it contained no pet projects for their districts.

Reps. Michael Michaud and Tom Allen, D-Maine, voted in favor of the bill.

“The content is a heck of a lot better than most expected we’d come up with,” said the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis. He worked with his Senate counterpart, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., to add money for initiatives popular with both Democrats and Republicans.

The overall total would have been even higher had there not been such hurt feelings over how Democrats powered the bill through the House: just an hour of debate time, no amendments allowed.

Republicans also said the measure was not entirely free of parochial “earmarks,” saying powerful senators such as Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., received special treatment for home-state projects.

The White House has signaled that President Bush would sign the bill despite cuts to his requests for NASA, foreign aid and communities affected by the latest round of military base closings.

But numerous agencies are feeling the crunch from operating for four months at or below last year’s levels. So the administration was eager for relief for the FBI, the Census Bureau and the Veterans Affairs Department and others.

Republicans also struggled to find unity. Conservatives pressed for a budget freeze to save about $6 billion.

Other lawmakers, including Reps. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Dave Weldon, R-Fla., complained about inadequate spending. Moran pushed in vain for $3.3 billion in more money for farm disaster aid. Weldon complained that a $545 million cut to NASA would jeopardize the agency’s plans to send man back to the moon and onto Mars.

Democrats were not entirely pleased with the bill.

It would grant remarkable flexibility to the administration in determining how to use money within agency accounts – and in awarding grants and other projects to lawmakers’ districts and states.

Living within last year’s budget cap set by Bush – before Democrats won control of Capitol Hill in the November elections – meant they could not be as generous as they would have liked.

Democrats, nonetheless, provided increases for underperforming schools, health research and grants to state and local law enforcement agencies.

They were especially pleased with a $260 boost, to $4,310, in the maximum Pell Grant for low-income college students, and with a 40 percent increase, to $4.5 billion, for fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis overseas.

Obey said $3 billion to put the 2005 base closing law in place would be added to an upcoming Iraq war spending bill; that made it easier to bulk up favored domestic accounts.

Republicans contended some money came from phantom savings from highway spending.

In a striking exchange, GOP Rep. David Hobson of Ohio said Democrats bowed to powerful Republicans needed to pass the bill in the Senate.

Hobson said the House wanted to cut $495 million from nuclear weapons accounts, but settled for just $95 million out of deference to Domenici and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., whose states are home to numerous Energy Department facilities.