Work on Funding Bills With Education Items Goes On in Congress

Schools would continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid services, and many would receive payments for diminished timber revenues, under a supplemental-spending bill approved by the Senate.

The $212 billion measure, which was primarily to provide additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, passed May 22 on a vote of 75-22. It would also offer generous college-access benefits to veterans of the two wars. The House a week earlier approved its own fiscal 2008 supplemental-spending measure, which included the veterans’ and Medicaid provisions. ( "Spending Bills Would Permit Medicaid Reimbursements," May 21, 2008.)

The Senate bill would provide a one-year extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 , a program that gives federal aid to make up for diminished timber revenues in counties that are home to national forests, at a cost...