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October 31, 2005
On October 27, 2005, the Senate passed by a vote of 94-3 the appropriations bill that provides funding for labor, health and human services, and education agencies and programs. The Senate's version of H.R. 3010 (the House-passed bill) provides total discretionary spending in the amount of $145.7 billion, an increase of nearly $2.3 billion over last year. The House bill, passed on June 24, 2005, provides $142.5 billion. As passed last Thursday, the Senate bill provides funding as outlined
in the side-by-side comparison below:
In addition, the bill includes $125 million for the President's Community College Job Training Initiative, $1.194 billion for Perkins Basic State Grants, and $106 million for TechPrep. The Senate bill calls for about $3.2 billion more in overall discretionary spending than the House version, and about $3.7 billion more than the President's request. Differences in the House and Senate versions of the bill will need to be ironed out in a compromise bill, which will be further complicated by the continuing efforts to agree upon a five-year budget reconciliation and the likelihood that Congress will impose an across-the-board cut to all FY 2006 discretionary spending. The Senate is asking for a conference, and has already appointed its conferees. They are
Senators Specter, Cochran, Gregg, Craig, Hutchison, Stevens, DeWine, Shelby, Domenici, Harkin,
Inouye, Reid, Kohl, Murray, Landrieu, Durbin, and Byrd.
For more information on the bill, see the Library of Congress THOMAS website at
http://thomas.loc.gov
then search for information on H.R. 3010.
If you have any comments or questions, contact NAWB CEO Stephanie Powers
at: powerss@nawb.org
National Association of Workforce Boards
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