Medicaid, food stamps, student loans take a hit...sm

Washington -- House Republicans, after weeks of negotiations, narrowly passed a budget bill early Friday to cut $50 billion from Medicaid, food stamps, student loans and other programs over the complaints of Democrats that Congress is squeezing students, the elderly and the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

The House approved the bill 217-215, after GOP leaders agreed to demands from moderate Republicans to jettison a measure to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and to slightly reduce proposed cuts to food stamps.

Still, the vote was so politically sensitive that House leaders didn't begin debate until 10 p.m. Thursday and didn't pass the measure until nearly 2 a.m. -- when most news reporters gone and only a few C-SPAN junkies could witness the fiery floor action. No Democrats voted for the bill, and 14 Republicans opposed it.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said in a floor speech that cutting money for Medicaid, child support enforcement and foster care as the House prepares to vote on $70 billion in tax cuts was a sin.

Republicans are launching an attack on America's children, on America's families, Pelosi said. They are also launching an attack on America's middle class, all of this to give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country.

But House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., responded that the proposed cuts were needed to rein in the growth of federal spending on health care and other programs.

Medicaid is growing at a 7.3 percent growth rate per year, Hastert said. It has been growing for years. Is there a better way to do it? Is there a more efficient way to do it? Should we find some reforms to make it better? Yes, we should.

The House bill also would split the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, a goal of conservatives who have long complained the court is too liberal. But the breakup of the appellate court, which covers the country's Western region including federal cases that arise in California, is not part of the Senate budget bill. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are seeking to strip it from the final package.

The battle over the budget reconciliation bill now moves to a joint House-Senate conference committee, where lawmakers will have to make several critical decisions, including:

-- Will the final budget bill allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

The Senate version would allow drilling, but a group of House Republican moderates has pledged to oppose any final bill that would open the Alaskan wildlife refuge for development.

-- How deeply will lawmakers cut student loans?

The House bill would cut student loan programs by $14.3 billion, while the Senate version cuts them by $8.8 billion. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the House bill would cause a typical college student with the average of $17,000 in student loans to pay an additional $5,800 in interest and fees over the length of the loans.

-- Will some legal immigrants lose their food stamps?

The House bill would cut off 220,000 people from food stamps by allowing legal immigrants to qualify for the food aid after seven years, instead of the current five years. The Senate bill does not cut food stamps, and moderate lawmakers are urging that it be dropped from the final budget package.

-- How will the cuts affect Medicaid recipients?

The House bill calls for $11.4 billion in cuts to Medicaid, while the Senate bill trims spending by only $4.3 billion. The House bill also would allow co-payments to rise over time with inflation and would deny Medicaid nursing home benefits to people with $750,000 in home equity.

-- Will child support enforcement be cut?

The House bill would slash funding for child support enforcement by $4.9 billion. The Senate did not include any cuts to child support enforcement.

-- Will Medicare be cut?

The Senate voted to eliminate $5.4 billion in subsidies for some regional insurance companies that agreed to participate in President Bush's Medicare prescription drug program. The House bill does not cut the subsidies.

Congress watchers expect that lawmakers are likely to split the difference between the House's $50 billion in cuts over five years and the Senate's $35 billion in trims. But the negotiations will be difficult for GOP leaders. Conservatives, especially in the House, have been pushing for deeper cuts. Republican moderates plan to lobby to restore funding for some programs.

House Republicans argue the heated rhetoric over the budget bill's effects is overblown because many cuts are simply limiting the growth rate of certain federal programs. For example, the proposed cuts to Medicaid would lower the annual growth rate in spending on the program from 7.3 percent to 7 percent.

But Democrats complained the cuts hit the wrong targets, including students struggling to pay for college. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would increase costs to students and families by $8 billion, including nearly $5.5 billion in costs when students consolidate loans.

You're hurting the students of this nation, Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, told Republicans in an angry floor speech. You're putting their families in debt. You're piling on the interest rates. You ought to be ashamed of it.

E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.

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I just asked my son's girlfriend who works at a grocery store if you can buy soda with food stamps and she said yes-no wine or beer, no toilet paper, shampoo or other nonedible things and no cigarettes, but soda and candy, chips, yes.

What about providing them the tools to deal with and live a productive life with their handicap or mental illness? The problem with the liberals and their idea of helping humanity is that throwing money at the problem doesn't make it go away. Do you know how many homeless people out there suffer with mental illness? Do you know how many people with mentally ill family members weren't able to get their loved one the help they needed? I'm talking tangible help, not just a monthly stipend that doesn't even cover the meds they require!

Do you realize that your husband, mother, father, sister brother, who ever can slice their wrists and take a handful of pills in an attempt to commit suicide, admit to their family they don't want to live, but when they show up to the ER and say "I didn't really want to kill myself" they just let them walk away with stitches in their wrists and after they've pumped their stomachs? Did you know that even if they holler in the ER to the doctor, nurse, and social worker that they don't want to live and the most a family member can do to help their loved is an affadavit for a 96-hour hold in most states? After 96 hours, they are deemed "okay" and released again to go on their merry way.

The liberal lawmakers have passed laws that say a mentally ill person has the right to be mentally ill. They have a right to decide not to take their meds and they have a right to be homeless. They are allowed to make decisions on their own which are detrimental to their well being, both physically and mentally! A family member pleading to the court that this person is incompetent and cannot take themselves is virtually ignored. I dare anyone to try to go to a court of law and get POA over a mentally ill loved one and see just how difficult it really is. It's impossible thanks to the liberals.

In this situation, people can't help other people if they can't help themselves.

If you're lucky you'll be dead before you have to pay it off. Apparently nobody else is paying theirs back...

Didn't Michelle Obama say they were still (in their 40s) paying on theirs? Got that mansion in Illinois, but can't pay back their student loans? Wasn't this in a speech she gave in Zanesville, OH when she told people to forego college and get into the 'service sector' because the Obamas were still paying off student loans? Now her husband says we need a degree in order to work in the US? Wow! What must pillow-talk be like in that bedroom?

A Texas golf course, a Nevada tanning salon and an Illinois candy shop were among small businesses that may have improperly received U.S. subsidized loans intended for firms hurt by the September 11 attacks, an internal government watchdog has found.

The Small Business Administration's inspector general said in a report made public on Wednesday that in 85 percent of the sample of loans it reviewed, a company's eligibility to receive the money through the program could not be verified.

A leading Senate Republican called for further investigation, but the Small Business Administration said the program was properly implemented.

The one-year, $4.5 billion Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief, or STAR, program offered loan guarantees to small businesses adversely affected by the September 11 attacks.

However, the Small Business Administration had failed to properly oversee lenders to make sure that only eligible borrowers obtained STAR loans, the watchdog's report found.

Money may have gone to businesses that were not adversely impacted by the terrorist attacks of September 11th or their aftermath, wrote Robert Seabrooks, assistant inspector general for auditing.

Congress authorized the program in January 2002, and set aside $75 million to cover potential defaults. The program was operated through the Small Business Administration's main loan-guarantee program and the loans were made by participating banks. In all, 8,201 loans were approved totaling $3.7 billion, but only 7,058 were actually paid out.

Of 42 STAR-loan recipients interviewed by the inspector general's office, just two said they were aware they had obtained a such a loan. In cases where eligibility could not be established, 25 of 34 borrowers interviewed stated they were not adversely affected by the attacks, the report said.

The report's examples included the Texas golf course, whose owner was cited by a lender as saying people were more interested in staying home and watching the attack on television than playing golf. However, the course was owned by someone else when the attacks took place and the justification for the $480,000 in loan guarantees did not apply to the new owner, the report said.

The tanning salon's lender blamed the September 11 attacks for hurting the Las Vegas casino industry which employed many of the salon's customers.

However, the inspector general found the salon's business had grown by 52 percent in 2001 and 32 percent in 2002 and said there was no evidence the owner could not borrow outside of the program. The SBA guaranteed $437,000 in loans to the salon, which were used to expand.

The Illinois candy shop received $21,250 in guarantees but could not back up its claim that the attacks had delayed the shop's opening, the report said.

Senate Small Business Committee Chairwoman Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, said her panel would look into the program.

If abuses are discovered, many questions must be answered by the parties involved, beginning with how and why was this allowed to happen, she said in a statement.

SBA said it has told lenders it will not honor guarantees on defaulted loans that fail to document the September 11 link.

SBA implemented the STAR program as Congress intended, Administrator Hector Barreto said in a statement.

The inspector general said it appeared qualified borrowers were not shut out of STAR loans.

So, let's see. I know that I have been known to lapse into a coma from time to time, but haven't we been here before - making subprime loans in order to stimulate sales and to hell with what happens next?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please, but I'm having such a strange sense of deja vu here.

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
St. Francis of Assisi

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his dealings wtih animals.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 � Democrats and their allies mapped out a strategy on Friday that they hoped would enable them to override President Bush�s expected veto of a bipartisan bill providing health insurance for 10 million children, most of them in low-income families.

Democratic leaders said they would highlight the contrast between the president�s request for large sums of money for the Iraq war and his opposition to smaller sums for the State Children�s Health Insurance Program, known as Schip.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said, �It�s ironic that in the very same week that the president says he�s going to veto the bill because we can�t afford it, he is asking, what, for $45 billion more over and above his initial request for the war in Iraq, money that we know is being spent without accountability, without a plan for how we can leave Iraq.�

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said, �This is all a matter of priorities: the cost of Iraq, $333 million a day; the cost of Schip, $19 million a day.�

The campaign for the legislation will also include grass-roots advocacy and political advertisements, and will initially focus on about 15 House Republicans who voted against the bill. Supporters of the legislation hope to persuade them to switch.

But House Republican leaders said they felt sure they could sustain the veto, and two lawmakers on the Democrats� list said that they would support Mr. Bush.

The bill passed this week by the House and the Senate would provide $60 billion for the program over the next five years, up $35 billion from the current level of spending. On Wednesday, the administration said it would seek $42 billion more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing its total request to nearly $190 billion for the 2008 fiscal year, which begins Monday.

In an interview on Friday, the House Republican whip, Roy Blunt of Missouri, said there was �a 100 percent probability� that the House would sustain the president�s veto.

But, Mr. Blunt said, the coincidental timing of the vote on the child health bill and the request for money in Iraq �was not helpful.�

The White House, on the defensive, is trying to bolster Republicans who fear they might be penalized by voters if they side with the president.

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said Friday, �It is preposterous for people to suggest that the president of the United States doesn�t care about children, that he wants children to suffer.�

Ms. Perino said the president had a policy difference with Democrats in Congress because he did not want �additional government-run health care, socialized-type medicine.�

Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who helped write the bill, said he would reach out to House Republicans and urge them to override the veto.

�This bill is not socialized medicine,� Mr. Grassley said. �Screaming �socialized medicine� is like shouting �fire� in a crowded theater. It is intended to cause hysteria that diverts people from reading the bill, looking at the facts.�

The battle will be fought in the House, where the child health bill was approved on Tuesday by a vote of 265 to 159 � well short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a veto.

Ms. Pelosi called Mr. Bush on Friday and said she was praying he would sign the bill.

But Mr. Blunt said: �I bet she�s praying for him not to sign it. The bill is all about politics. It�s pretty good politics for the Democrats.�

Still, Democrats face an uphill fight to persuade Republicans to change their votes. Supporters would need 289 yes votes to enact the bill over the president�s objections if all the members were voting.

One of the Republicans singled out for special attention by Democrats was Representative Judy Biggert, from a suburban Chicago district. She was one of 16 Republicans who signed a letter to the speaker last week, urging her to take up the Senate version of the child health bill.

The compromise closely followed the Senate version, but Mrs. Biggert voted against it, saying, �It would push Americans one step closer to socialized medicine.�

In an interview on Friday, Mrs. Biggert said she would vote to sustain the veto.

Democrats said they would also focus their efforts on Republicans like Representatives Timothy V. Johnson of Illinois, John R. Kuhl Jr. of New York, Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan and H. James Saxton of New Jersey.

Mr. McCotter said he was a big supporter of the child health program, but would vote to uphold the president�s veto, even if critics ran television advertisements against him.

Under the bill, the federal excise tax on cigarettes would be increased to $1 a pack, from the current 39 cents.

�I vowed never to raise taxes on anybody, no matter how disliked they might be,� Mr. McCotter said in an interview. He said he would rather be voted out of office than go back on his promises to constituents.

Republican senators who worked on the compromise bill, like Mr. Grassley and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, said they had tried in vain to persuade White House officials to join the negotiations.

Ms. Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said that after vetoing the bill, Mr. Bush would like to �sit down and come to a compromise� with Congress.

The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said the president should not hold his breath waiting for such a deal. Democrats, he said, have already made many concessions to keep the support of Senate Republicans.

A lot of times a "no" vote comes from some hidden provision that doesn't jive with the candidates' personal policies, i.e. it might not be that they disagree with the issue, but instead that they disagree with the strategy proposed to tackle it.

I'm not sure if this website has any politicial affiliation (I couldn't find one), but I checked several of the states constitutions out and they were spot on. Now, I'm not a Bible thumper (or even attend church regularly), but I thought this was interesting considering Obama's speech.

Please note that at no time in any of these constitutions is anyone told that they MUST worship God.

I just watched the video where he stated he was going to put such high caps and make the coal industries pay mucho dollars and hopefully bankrupt the coal industry. BUT, he also stated he would use dollars they must pay if they want to use coal, for clean energy policies like wind power, etc.

So, that said, how does he intend to pay for all his other energy technology if he bankrupts the coal industry and businesses that use coal? After all, if he bankrupts the businesses that use coal which, by the way, is most electric power plants, whose pocket will he be dipping into for the money for his clean energy policies???

Medicaid, food stamps, student loans take a hit...sm

House OKs budget bill cutting $50 billion in aid Medicaid, food stamps, student loans take a hit

House OKs budget bill cutting $50 billion in aid
Medicaid, food stamps, student loans take a hit