Panel lightly trims Labor-HHS spending bill

The House Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Friday approved a $160.7 billion fiscal 2010 spending bill at a price tag $52 million lower than President Obama requested.

"I indicated that we faced some very hard choices this year," House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said. "These adjustments are important for setting the right priorities within the pending allocation, for getting the deficit under control, and for creating a government that is as efficient as it is effective."

With stimulus and emergency money flowing to the Health and Human Services and the Education departments in recent months, lawmakers targeted some of the programs on the receiving end. Appropriators cut by more than 20 percent Obama's request for Title I funding for disadvantaged children, but the program did receive $13 billion in the economic stimulus. The panel also pared back the school innovation and improvement fund, other areas that saw stimulus money. And HHS saw a $578 million reduction in money Obama wanted for public health emergencies, a 20 percent cut. But that comes on the heels of $7.65 billion in emergency funding to combat the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu.

The bill reduces Obama's request for the Corporation for National and Community Service until the agency demonstrates it has improved internal operations.

Overall, HHS would receive $73.7 billion, an extra $2 billion above Obama's request. The panel rejected an Obama proposal to send more money specifically to cancer research centers, instead providing $31.3 billion to the National Institutes of Health for biomedical research.

The Education Department will receive $64.7 billion, but the panel rejected an Obama proposal to cut $1.5 billion in Title I funding and use the money for other programs. However, many of the administration's new proposals -- including $10 million for "Promise Neighborhoods" modeled on the Harlem Children's Zone and $156 million for charter schools -- remain.

The Labor Department will receive $13.3 billion, $846 million more than fiscal 2009 but $23 million below the administration's request. Obey said more than half of the additional funding will go to help states process rising unemployment claims.