Bush OKs Budget; Hikes Title I, Cuts Reading First

President Bush has signed into a law a bill that will increase federal education spending by 2.9 percent in fiscal 2008 and that generally favors Democratic priorities over the administration’s.

The plan to appropriate $59.2 billion for U.S. Department of Education programs in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 is part of a larger budget drama in which Democrats largely gave in to a hard-line White House stance that earlier measures contained too much in domestic spending increases.

In signing the bill Dec. 26, President Bush criticized Congress for including too many earmarks, or small projects requested by individual lawmakers, in the legislation, a $550 billion omnibus measure that includes fiscal 2008 spending for most other Cabinet agencies as well...