The House last week approved a slimmed-down supplemental-appropriations bill for the current fiscal year that includes $892 million to cover shortfalls in the Stafford student-loan program.
The $3.7-billion measure does not include a provision in an earlier version of the bill that would have offset some spending with across-the-board cuts that could have cost the Education Department about $185 million.
The House rejected the earlier version in April. The Appropriations4Committee then cut about $1 billion from HR 2072 and deleted the offsets. The resulting bill was approved on a 227-to-197 vote. The Senate was expected to act on it this week.
But a White House statement said the cuts were insufficient and threatened a veto of the measure by President Bush.
Before approving the bill, the House rejected a proposal to shift $862 million from the Strategic Defense Initiative to drug-enforcement efforts, which were already allotted more than $800 million in the bill.
--jm
