The House on Wednesday narrowly approved Congress' first attempt in eight years to slow the growth of benefit programs like Medicaid and student loan subsidies, sending the measure to President Bush.###
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It blends modest cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and student loan subsidies with a renewal of the 1996 welfare reform bill and $10 billion in new revenues from auctioning television airwaves to wireless companies. There's also $1 billion in new spending to extend an income subsidy program for dairy farmers and a reprieve for physicians who had faced a 4 percent cut in Medicare fees.
The $39 billion in cuts are generally small — a 0.4 percent cut in Medicaid funding and 0.3 percent cut in Medicare over five years — compared with deficits expected to total $1.3 trillion or more through 2010. Still, the bill set off a brawl between Democrats and Republicans and whipped up opposition from interest groups like AARP.
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