House GOP Leaders Set to Cut Spending

As always, the budget will be balanced on the backs of the poor.--Dicytnna.

Leadership Shake-Up Spurred Policy Shift

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 17, 2005; Page A01

House Republican leaders have moved from balking at big cuts in Medicaid and other programs to embracing them, driven by pent-up anger from fiscal conservatives concerned about runaway spending and the leadership's own weakening hold on power.

Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs. Only last month, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and other GOP leaders quashed demands within their party for budget cuts to pay for the soaring cost of hurricane relief.