Dems Boost Funding Levels, Redirect Money with Impunity Bush appears to have won the Battle of the Topline, with the House approving an omnibus package (summary; text) accepting President Bush's insistence on the $933 billion cap on total discretionary spending in FY 2008 he requested back in February. On top of that, he will get a $70 billion downpayment on his $200 billion "emergency" spending supplemental request. So he's not sweating the small stuff. Even though the small stuff adds about $11 billion ($7.5 billion in emergency funding for border security and other initiatives and $3.7 billion in contingent emergency funding for veterans) in off-budget spending -- roughly splitting the difference between his $933 billion budget and the $956 billion provided in Congress' Budget Resolution. On top of that, we've heard nary a peep out of the White House about reordered on-budget spending in the House-passed omnibus that pulls billions out of Bush priorities and redirects them to Democratic priority programs. The chart below (hat tip: Craig Jennings) identifies the re-arrangement of some of the bigger deck chairs provided for in the House-passed omnibus. President's Budget Request and House FY 2008 Omnibus Spending Levels(millions of dollars) Program President's Request Omnibus Level Difference Labor-HHS-Education 140,900 144,800 +3,900 Medical research into diseases including Alzheimer's, cancer, Parkinson's disease and diabetes +613 Rural Health Programs +147 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention +393 Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) +788 Community Services Block Grant 0 654 +654 Head Start +114 Pell Grants +801 Reading First 1,019 393 -626 Homeland Security 34,200 35,100 +900 First Responder Grant Programs 3,400 4,100 +700 Agriculture 17,800 19,200 +1,400 Commodity Supplemental Food Program 0 140 +140 State-Foreign Ops 34,900 32,800 -2,100 Millennium Challenge Corporation 3,000 1,500 -1,500 Transportation-HUD 48,000 48,900 +900 Highway Infrastructure & Bridges +631 Community Development Block Grants +566 Energy-Water 30,500 31,500 +1,000 Renewable energy and energy efficiency programs +486 Strategic Petroleum Reserve 329 187 -142 Global Nuclear Energy Partnership 395 179 -216 International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor 121 0 -121 List is not comprehensive. Indented lines are constituent parts of non-indented line items. Sources:

• Washington Post: Democrats Tighten Spending in Latest Version of Bill
• CQ: Year-End Spending Package Falls in Line With President's Request
• AP: Budget Bill Reverses Bush Cuts
• House Appropriations Committee: Filling Holes: The President's Budget v. The Omnibus