OneWorld.net (U.S.)

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 23 (OneWorld) - A budget-cutting bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week has left countless groups--especially those advocating on behalf of the poor and the environment--devastated by what they say is irresponsible favoritism of rich individuals and corporations.

The House version of the Budget Reconciliation Bill, which would shave $50 billion off government spending by the end of the decade, slipped through a two-vote crack Friday, passing 217-215 with the support of all but 14 Republicans in the chamber but not a single Democrat.

The bill makes it harder for the needy to qualify for the Food Stamp Program and would slash eligibility for some 220,000 to 250,000 people, says Bread for the World, a non-profit group that fights hunger.

"[The bill] takes food from families struggling to make ends meet and puts more money in the pockets of those who need it the least," said the group's president, Rev. David Beckmann, in a statement released Friday.

By 2010, the cuts would remove child-care subsidies for some 330,000 low-income working families, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a non-partisan research group that tends to lean left-of-center on policy issues.

The bill would also increase interest rates and fees paid by kids and families receiving student loans and would reduce subsidies for lenders, amounting to some $14 billion dollars in government savings.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that deep cuts in efforts to enforce the payment of child support to needy single parents would save $24 billion over the next ten years.

The CBO also said that increases in co-payments and premiums for Medicaid recipients set forth in the bill would deprive many low-income people of health care completely, which would likely result in more emergency room visits and higher emergency care costs.

These changes would reduce Medicaid by nearly $30 billion over ten years, according to the CBO.

Faith groups were divided over the bill.

"The House bill is obscene," said the Rev. Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelical who heads the Call to Renewal anti-poverty campaign.

"A Christian president better pay attention to what Christians think about this budget bill," Wallis said, warning that lawmakers will "pay a political price for not protecting low-income people."

However Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, a Christian organization promoting what many refer to as "traditional family values," urged his members to support the bill to help restore "the fiscal discipline that families take for granted."

Many of the House Republicans who voted for the bill argue that it would introduce much-needed fiscal discipline to a country strapped with the unexpected and costly woes of Hurricane Katrina and a continuing war in Iraq.

"This unchecked spending is growing faster than our economy, faster than inflation, and far beyond our means to sustain it," said Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, (R-IA), who supported the bill.

Democrats, for their part, have argued that deficit reduction can't be Republicans' real goal, since they are concurrently supporting a tax cut proposition that would more than erase the savings gained by the Budget Reconciliation Bill.

The head of one of the country's top labor unions, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, weighed in as well, saying the bill's passage showed that "the administration and its congressional allies are completely out of touch with mainstream America."

Earth Justice, a non-profit public interest law firm, said that the bill allows the government to sell off millions of acres of public lands currently protected by the federal government "at bargain-basement prices--solely for the private gain of private corporations," and warned that "areas in or near national parks, including Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Grand Canyon, could all be at risk."

Environmentalists expressed dismay that the bill would cut $225 million that local governments use to rehabilitate aging dams and other flood control projects.

Most notably, the new bill leaves off a provision to open the Artic Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, and makes concessions to moderate Republicans such as providing heating subsidies for the poor in northern states and leaving co-payments for the poorest Medicaid beneficiaries at $3 instead of raising them to $5.

Friday's House bill squeaked by after changes were made to another version that was rejected last week.

But the CBO estimates that the last minute changes to the original version only eased the cuts aimed at the poor by 2 percent.

By contrast, the Senate's approved version of the Budget Reconciliation Bill proposes just $35 billion in cuts--$15 billion less than the House version--and is widely seen by anti-poverty groups as easier on the poor.

The Senate's version however, includes the Arctic drilling provision that the House threw out.

Negotiations on a compromise between the House and Senate bills begin next month, and the Sierra Club says it expects the Senate to try to send the final bill back to the House with the Arctic drilling provision still in it.

"The removal of Arctic and coastal drilling by no means implies this bill is good for America. The House passed a bill loaded down with draconian cuts to programs for the most vulnerable in our country," said Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's Executive Director, in a statement released Friday.

Unlike the House version, the Senate's version of the bill does not include any cuts to food stamps, child support enforcement, or foster care, and its Medicaid cuts will not harm low-income beneficiaries.

"The Senate took on powerful lobbying interests such as managed care providers and pharmaceutical companies," the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in a statement Friday.

But the House bill, say many Democrats, mis-prioritizes the country's problems.

"If a budget is a statement of priorities for a nation, this budget bill speaks volumes about the misplaced priorities of this Congress," said former presidential hopeful and champion of progressive causes, Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).

"This budget chooses war over education, tax cuts over health care, special interests over need of the nation and rich over poor. This budget bill attempts to balance the deficits caused by the war in Iraq and the tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans squarely on the backs of poor and working class Americans."