What Tax Cuts Cost

Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House.

The measure, which passed 250-151, contains $142.5 billion in spending under Congress' control for labor, health and education programs. That's essentially a freeze at current levels.

But new demands, including $870 million to administer the new Medicare prescription drug program, have forced cuts in scores of programs.

The cuts include the outright elimination of 48 programs whose current budgets total $1 billion. Among the programs to be eliminated is the Healthy Communities Access Program, currently funded at $83 million, which helps communities offer health care to the uninsured.

Also eliminated is the $205 million budget for an Education Department grant program targeted at low-income and underachieving schools.

Trickle-down economics at work.