GOP leader reminded of pledge to boost health, education funding

House Republican moderates sent a letter Wednesday to Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, urging him to support adding $3 billion to the fiscal 2007 Labor-Health and Human Services spending bill in conference after the elections.

The letter asks Boehner to live up to a commitment he made to moderates during the fiscal 2007 budget resolution debate to find the extra money to erase cuts in education and healthcare programs in exchange for their votes.

"We appreciate your work to live up to this agreement and your willingness to incorporate these priorities in the federal allocation for the" fiscal 2007 Labor-HHS spending bill, states the letter spearheaded by Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., and signed by 24 Republicans. "We strongly support fulfilling this agreement before the end of the legislative year."

A similar effort is unfolding across the Capitol, where Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and ranking member Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, are circulating a letter to Senate and Appropriations Committee leaders to add funds to the Labor-HHS bill in conference.

An aide said the letter had 52 signatures at presstime, with at least 10 of them Republicans, including Specter and some senators in competitive races such as Sens. Conrad Burns of Montana, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

The House version of the fiscal 2007 Labor-HHS bill, which has not come to the floor, would provide $141.9 billion in discretionary spending. While $4.1 billion above the White House's request, it is still $3 billion shy of what moderates argue is necessary to restore funding to fiscal 2006 levels while accounting for inflation.

Part of the commitment Boehner made required that offsets for the extra spending be found, but those should not come from sensitive benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid or student loans. An across-the-board cut in all discretionary programs, including defense, has been floated, but those decisions will likely wait until after the elections.

It also increases the likelihood that the Labor-HHS bill will be included in an omnibus package, where it is often easier to discover untapped pockets of money as well as complete unfinished spending bills in a more timely fashion.

House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., oppose that approach, however, expressing their concerns in a letter this week to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Conservatives are rejecting an omnibus on the grounds that too much fiscal mischief is possible.

"If timing is the central issue of concern, then we should consider a long-term [continuing resolution] for all of fiscal 2007," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the House Republican Study Committee's budget task force.