The House and the Senate last week approved a $2.9 trillion budget blueprint for fiscal year 2008, which allows lawmakers to provide up to $93.8 billion for education, training, employment, and social-services programs, about a 6.5 percent increase over fiscal 2007. The Senate approved the measure May 16 on a 52-40 vote. The House approved it the same day on a 214-209 vote.
The budget blueprint is used to guide congressional decisions on taxes and spending later on in the annual appropriations process.
The blueprint would also require the House Education and Labor Committee and the Senate, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee to cut $750 million over five years for nondiscretionary education spending.
That language is expected to help the education committees trim federal subsidies to student lenders, a policy in which both education committee chairmen, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., have expressed interest.
