WASHINGTON // The House gave final approval yesterday to a far-reaching bill that will trim the growth of federal benefit programs by more than $39 billion in the next five years - Congress' first major budget-cutting exercise in almost a decade.

The measure squeaked through the Republican-led House by a vote of 216 to 214, without a single Democrat in favor. The Senate had passed the legislation shortly before Christmas, also with no Democratic support, when Vice President Dick Cheney broke a 50-50 tie.

President Bush issued a statement praising the House vote and adding, "I look forward to signing this bill into law." He said the 2007 budget he would submit to Congress on Monday "will continue to build on the spending restraint we have achieved."

Among its many provisions, the bill will charge higher interest rates on student loans, reduce federal aid for forcing absent parents to pay child support and impose stricter work requirements on welfare recipients.

Republican leaders have portrayed the bill as a critical part of their drive to reduce the federal budget deficit. Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who is a leader of House conservatives, called the measure "an important first step toward restoring public confidence in the fiscal integrity of our national government."

Yet the measure would trim only about 0.3 percent of federal spending projected for the next five years. And even as the House was passing the spending-cut bill, the Senate was debating a $56 billion tax cut that the House has passed - a combination that would add $16 billion to federal deficits.

Democrats condemned budget cuts that were focused on programs to benefit the poor even as Republicans plan more tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

"This isn't about small government," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. "This is about small-minded, petty government that does not meet the needs of the American people."

The bill includes some provisions that reach far beyond mere budget cuts. Upon Bush's signature, the legislation will reauthorize and revamp the welfare reform law that Congress enacted in 1996 but that expired in 2002. Since then, Congress has extended the program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, with a series of short-term reauthorizations.

States will face reductions in federal welfare grants if they cannot meet strict new requirements for moving their welfare recipients into jobs or activities such as job training.

The bill's Medicaid provisions spell bad news for many of the program's low-income recipients but good news for health insurers and drug companies. The bill could mean that beneficiaries with incomes just above the poverty line will have to pay far more than the current $3 co-payment for many medical services. It will tighten restrictions on elderly people who transfer assets to family members to qualify for Medicaid.

Senate-passed provisions to force insurance companies and drug manufacturers to absorb some of the cuts were dropped by the House-Senate conference committee that wrote the final bill.

The deepest cuts - $12.7 billion over five years - were exacted on the government's student loan programs. Kevin Bruns, executive director of America's Student Loan Providers, said the savings would come at the expense of students, parents and lenders alike. "No one got off easy," he said.

Maryland's House delegation voted along party lines, as it did in December. The two Republicans, Reps. Roscoe G. Bartlett and Wayne T. Gilchrest, supported the bill, while the six Democrats - Reps. Benjamin L. Cardin, Elijah E. Cummings, Steny H. Hoyer, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Albert R. Wynn and Chris Van Hollen - opposed it.

As much as the measure's passage was welcomed by Bush, it was perhaps sweeter yet for House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, whose hopes of succeeding former Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas could have been derailed if he had failed to corral the necessary votes.

Blunt, a Missouri Republican, has emerged as the favorite in today's GOP vote for a House majority leader, a contest that has been dominated by debate over the party's direction in the wake of ethics scandals.

Richard Simon and Joel Havemann write for the Los Angeles Times.

Bookman: President has lost Americans' confidence

By JAY BOOKMAN
Cox News Service
Thursday, February 02, 2006

ATLANTA — President Bush has forfeited the faith of the American people, and judging from his language Tuesday night, he knows it.

In his 2006 State of the Union speech, the president felt it necessary to warn us against "economic retreat," against retreating "from our duties in the hope of easier life."

"There is no peace in retreat," the president said, "and there is no honor in retreat." He warned against "abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders," promising that "the United States will not retreat from the world."

"Never give in to the belief that America is in decline," he begged his fellow citizens, "or that our culture is doomed to unravel."

Retreat. Decline. Retreat. . . . The White House had advertised the speech as optimistic, but its unconscious recurring theme, its underlying tone, proved to be anything but.

The president's language did, however, reflect the nation's mood. For months, almost two-thirds of Americans have been telling pollsters that the country was headed in the wrong direction. Almost two-thirds say the economy is fair or poor, despite the fact that by many standard measures it's doing pretty well. And while Bush says we're winning in Iraq, 60 percent disapprove of how he has handled that critically important challenge.

Some might interpret those numbers to mean that the American people are losing faith in this country — that's clearly the president's fear, for example. But I think that's wrong. We have lost faith in our leadership, which is a very different thing.

That loss of faith applies not just to the president but to government in general: Approval ratings for Congress are even lower than those for Bush. And it stretches beyond government. Too many of our corporate executives seem trapped in the gone old days, unable to adapt to new challenges, with thousands of jobs disappearing as a consequence. Too many of the rest are enriching themselves by squeezing hundreds of millions of dollars out of their workers' hides, while government cuts taxes on their proceeds.

Across all realms, there's a sense that our leaders lack the courage, the moral strength and the intellectual independence to address fundamental problems. Again, Bush's speech offers the perfect example.

In another echo of President Carter's infamous "malaise speech" of 1979, Bush pledged Tuesday night to break our oil addiction, to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

That's a worthy goal, but the president made no mention of taking such difficult steps as raising auto fuel-efficiency standards. He promised only the painless option of boosting spending on clean-energy research by 22 percent in the 2007 budget.

That "bold" new investment amounts to just 6.8 percent of ExxonMobil's profit for the fourth quarter, or what we spend in four days in Iraq.

No pain, no sacrifice, no hard work. Pick your topic; it's a story repeated over and over again.

In Iraq, the Bush administration didn't do the hard work of planning and preparing for an occupation and never committed the resources or manpower to make it work. The results are all too glaring.

After the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, we were promised a government ready to respond to the next disaster, but Hurricane Katrina proved that to be all talk as well. The administration just never took the job seriously, and it showed.

The same is true of the Medicare prescription drug plan. It's gonna cost us $500 billion we don't have, and even at that price it has been an administrative nightmare.

Go through the list — what project has this administration succeeded in pulling off, other than its own re-election and the creation of a right-wing Supreme Court? The answer is nothing.

In fact, they refuse even to acknowledge some of our most pressing problems. Man-made climate change is threatening to disrupt the environment on a planetary scale, and we do nothing. Last year our national savings dropped to the lowest level since the depths of the Great Depression, and we do nothing. We finance our greed and selfishness not by our own productive sweat and toil, but by borrowing another $2 billion every day from the rest of the world, money that our children and grandchildren will have to repay.

The president's right about this much: The American people do not like to retreat, and are by nature optimistic.

But optimism is a right purchased through hard work and sacrifice. We used to know that, but the memory's been lost.

Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: jbookman AT ajc.com

My opinion Molly Ivins: Some respectful realities of three-year war in Iraq

My opinion Molly Ivins

'We're on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory. First, we are helping Iraqis build an inclusive government, so that old resentments will be eased and the insurgency will be marginalized.

"Second, we're continuing reconstruction efforts and helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy, so all Iraqis can experience the benefit of freedom.

"And, third, we're striking terrorist targets while we train Iraqi forces that are increasingly capable of defeating the enemy." — George W. Bush

"The Iraq war has been a disaster." — CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour

The number of terrorist attacks per day in Iraq grew from 55 in December 2004 to 77 per day in December 2005.

Electricity production in Iraq has not yet recovered to prewar levels, and the electricity in Baghdad is on less today than it was under Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, telephone and Internet use are up.

While there are no hard numbers, there are repeated reports of the loss of educated, middle-class Iraqis, especially doctors, fleeing the country because of the lack of security.

Iraq produces less oil today than it did under Saddam Hussein. The current oil minister is Ahmad Chalabi, one-time darling of the neocon set and convicted of bank fraud in Jordan.

• • •

The majority of Iraqis favor complete American troop withdrawal, though the time frames they prefer vary.

"To the extent we stay there with big forces indefinitely, Iraqis will come up with all these theories that we really want to stay here for their oil. We want to use their country as a springboard for more aggression. They still see us as occupiers." — Michael O'Hanlon, Brookings Institute.

"A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our allies to death and prison … and put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country." — George W. Bush.

Actually, the insurgency in Iraqi is composed mostly of native Iraqis — old Baathists and others who don't like being occupied by infidels. International jihadists are a negligible fraction of those fighting, and they are there to fight Americans, not to take over Iraq.

The remaining allies in Iraq plan to withdraw 25 percent or more of their 22,000 troops this year.

• • •

The war in Iraq costs the United States $1 billion per week, $251 billion so far. Bush originally said it would cost $70 billion. Before the war, he fired his top economic adviser, Larry Lindsay, who said it would cost $200 billion.

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel economist, now estimates the total cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. He includes lifetime care of the wounded, the economic value of destroyed and lost lives and the opportunity cost of resources diverted to the war.

More than 2,200 Americans have been killed in action in Iraq and 16,000 seriously wounded. Because we are doing a better job saving the lives of the wounded, those who survive often have devastating injuries from which there is no recovery. The special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction released an audit last week containing extensive findings of fraud, incompetence and confusion.

Among the billions of dollars listed as wasted, I especially liked the $100,000 someone decided to spend to refurbish an Olympic-sized swimming pool, except that all that got done was shining the pumps.

Soldiers used reconstruction money for gambling, and millions were stored in footlockers and bathrooms. Three Iraqis fell to their deaths in a supposedly rebuilt hospital elevator that had been certified as safe.

• • •

Because of its total misjudgment of the war in Iraq, the administration has failed to enlarge the regular Army and has therefore put the entire institution under immense strain.

The "stop loss" refusal to let people leave at the end of their enlistments now affects 50,000 soldiers, and mobilization of the reserves and extended service are a form of draft.

Despite chipper denials from the Pentagon, the Army has serious problems with recruiting, especially getting quality recruits, and with regular Army re-enlistment. The reason the numbers are not worse is because of the bonuses being offered.

The officer corps is also being hollowed out, as younger officers quit in such numbers that 100 percent of those remaining are automatically moved up the ladder. For example, last year the Army promoted 97 percent of all eligible captains, up from as historical average of 70 percent to 80 percent.

This information is from Pentagon data in a report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. It is quite possible this administration is destroying the professional Army.

• • •

After our main purpose in invading Iraq stopped being weapons of mass destruction (the smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud), or the nonexistent linkage between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, or alleged links between Saddam Hussein and terrorists in general, our main purpose in invading Iraq became the spread of democracy in the Middle East.

So far, we've boosted the electoral results for Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and, next, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

The most important question about the war in Iraq is whether it is doing any good, and an increasing pool of evidence shows it has become a rallying and recruiting tool for global terrorists.

Like the other information in this article, the evidence comes from official reports.

I do hope this is responsible criticism that aims for cures, not defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.

Contact Molly Ivins, a nationally syndicated columnist, through Creators Syndicate, info@creators.com.

Papers: Ford White House Weighed Wiretaps

By MARGARET EBRAHIM

The Associated Press
Saturday, February 4, 2006; 1:20 AM

WASHINGTON -- An intense debate erupted during the Ford administration over the president's powers to eavesdrop without warrants to gather foreign intelligence, according to government documents. George H.W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are cited in the documents.

The roughly 200 pages of historic records obtained by The Associated Press reflect a remarkably similar dispute between the White House and Congress fully three decades before President Bush's acknowledgment he authorized wiretaps without warrants of some Americans in terrorism investigations.

Presidential assistant Donald Rumsfeld, right, and his deputy Richard Cheney meet with reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C., in this Thursday, Nov. 7, 1975 file photo. Rumsfeld was named by President Ford to replace James Schlesinger as Secretary of Defense and Cheney was to replace Rumsfeld. Newly disclosed historic government documents obtained by the Associated Press include one with startling similarity to Washington's current atmosphere over disclosures of classified information by the media. Notes from a 1975 meeting between Dick Cheney, then Attorney General Edward Levi and others cite the "problem" of a New York Times article by Seymour Hersh about U.S. submarines spying inside Soviet waters. (AP Photo) (AP)

"Yogi Berra was right: It's deja vu all over again," said Tom Blanton, executive director for the National Security Archive, a nongovernment research group at George Washington University. "It's the same debate."

Senate Judiciary Committee hearings begin Monday over Bush's authority to approve such wiretaps by the ultra-secretive National Security Agency without a judge's approval. A focus of the hearings is to determine whether the Bush administration's eavesdropping program violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law with origins during Ford's presidency.

"We strongly believe it is unwise for the president to concede any lack of constitutional power to authorize electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes," wrote Robert Ingersoll, then-deputy secretary of state, in a 1976 memorandum to President Ford about the proposed bill on electronic surveillance.

George H.W. Bush, then director of the CIA, wanted to ensure "no unnecessary diminution of collection of important foreign intelligence" under the proposal to require judges to approve terror wiretaps, according to a March 1976 memorandum he wrote to the Justice Department. Bush also complained that some major communications companies were unwilling to install government wiretaps without a judge's approval. Such a refusal "seriously affects the capabilities of the intelligence community," Bush wrote.

In another document, Jack Marsh, a White House adviser, outlined options for Ford over the wiretap legislation. Marsh alerted Ford to objections by Bush as CIA director and by Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft over the scope of a provision to require judicial oversight of wiretaps. At the time, Rumsfeld was defense secretary, Kissinger was secretary of state and Scowcroft was the White House national security adviser.

Some experts weren't surprised the cast of characters in this national debate remained largely unchanged over 30 years.

"People don't change their stripes," said Kenneth C. Bass a former senior Justice Department lawyer who oversaw such wiretap requests during the Carter administration.

Lisa Graves, senior counsel for legislative strategy at the American Civil Liberties Union, said comparing the Ford-era debate to the current controversy is "misleading because no matter what Mr. Cheney or Mr. Rumsfeld may have argued back in 1976, the fact is they lost. When Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, Congress decisively resolved this debate.

"Unlike the current administration, the Ford administration never claimed the right to violate a law requiring judicial oversight of wiretaps in foreign intelligence investigations if Congress were to pass such a law."

The National Security Archive separately obtained many of the same documents as the AP and intended to publish them on its Web site Saturday.

The documents include one startling similarity to Washington's current atmosphere over disclosures of classified information by the media. Notes from a 1975 meeting between Cheney, then White House chief of staff, then-Attorney General Edward Levi and others cite the "problem" of a New York Times article by Seymour Hersh about U.S. submarines spying inside Soviet waters. Participants considered a formal FBI investigation of Hersh and the Times and searching Hersh's apartment "to go after (his) papers," the document said.

"I was surprised," Hersh said in a telephone interview Friday. "I was surprised that they didn't know I had a house and a mortgage."

One option outlined at the 1975 meeting was to "ignore the Hersh story and hope it doesn't happen again." Participants worried about "will we get hit with violating the First Amendment to the Constitution?"

CIA Director Porter Goss told lawmakers this week that recent disclosures about sensitive programs were severely damaging, and he urged prosecutors to impanel a grand jury to determine "who is leaking this information." The National Security Agency earlier asked the Justice Department to open a formal leaks investigation over press reports of its terrorism wiretaps.

___

Associated Press writer Ted Bridis contributed to this report.

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Papers: Ford White House Weighed Wiretaps