The House will set to work on the reconciliation budget bill tomorrow, with markups in eight separate committees. The Energy and Commerce Committee will be looking to trim as much as $12 billion from Medicaid over five years. These cuts could be problematic for some members of the Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans such Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), who was responsible for sending a letter to Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle back in April, asking him to remove reductions to Medicaid in the reconciliation instructions. The letter was signed by 43 other Republicans, including former leader Tom Delay, Speaker Dennis Hastert, and House Whip Roy Blunt. The cuts to Medicaid which would be included in the House budget reconciliation bill would, unlike the Senate Finance Committee proposal, hit Medicaid beneficiaries directly. The House reconciliation instructions will also look at ANWR, offshore drilling, and LIHEAP funding. According to BNA, on Wednesday and Thursday of this week two House committees "plan to mark up language that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, expand offshore oil and gas exploration, and increase federal assistance to low-income families that need help paying their winter heating bills." Opening the ANWR coastal plain to oil and gas leasing is projected to raise $2.4 billion over five years (although this money is not guaranteed), yet will have a number of environmental consequences and do little to alleviate national dependancy on oil. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Joe Barton (R-TX) also plans to ask for an extra $1 billion to fund LIHEAP, which provides heating and cooling assistance to one out every five American families. In the Senate there have been two amendments to increase LIHEAP funding by $3.1 billion. Each of the two votes, which were procedural, have been rejected; however in anticipation of a 50 percent increase in heating bills many will be experiencing this winter, it is almost certain funding will go up significantly. The White House is expected to request a third supplemental spending bill for hurricane recovery by the end of this week, and that could potentially be a vehicle through which LIHEAP funding could be increased.

Although House GOP leaders dropped plans to vote on an amendment to the budget resolution to raise the level of cuts to mandatory spending from $35 billion to $50 billion, it appears GOP leaders are trying to save face by bringing a non-binding amendment, or an expression of preference, to the floor next week. The amendment would embody all four points of the "Hastert plan," including an increase in mandatory cuts to $50 billion, additional rescissions of unspent appropriations, "de-authorizing" unnecessary programs and an across-the-board cut in non-combat discretionary spending, but would do absolutely nothing to make sure those measures are actually implemented. It is unlikely the Senate will be looking to increase cuts since they are still struggling this week for consensus on just $35 billion in cuts.

As speculated earlier today on the Budget Blog, the House GOP leadership has pulled an expected amendment to the budget resolution from Thursday's floor schedule. There is no indication currently if this is simply a delay or a cancelation of the amendment. Either way, it shows that both the GOP leadership and the conservative Republican Study Committee do not have the influence necessary to push through more drastic cuts to low-income entitlement programs in the new political enviornment post-Katrina.