House OKs boosting food stamp budget

WASHINGTON -- With rising unemployment forcing millions of additional people onto food stamps, the House on Tuesday passed a bill to boost the program's budget by 14 percent.

The Agriculture Department announced this week that a record 33.8 million people -- or 1 in 9 Americans -- were participating in the food stamp program as of April. That's up 1.2 million people from two months earlier and up 5.6 million from the same time last year.

The House approved the food stamp funding by a 266-160 vote Thursday as it passed a $123.8 billion measure for agriculture and nutrition programs for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. Food stamps make up about half of the bill. Funding is also up 10 percent for a popular program that gives additional food aid for children and pregnant women to help an additional 700,000 people.

Later Thursday, the House passed a $48.8 billion measure funding foreign aid and the State Department budget after lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to force U.S. officials to oppose International Monetary Fund loans to countries that support terrorism.

The foreign aid bill passed 318-106 after members voted overwhelmingly to force the Obama administration to abide by conditions on IMF funding added by lawmakers when Congress passed a huge war funding bill last month.

President Obama had said he could choose to ignore the conditions since they would interfere with his ability to conduct foreign policy.

Democrats and Republicans offered competing interpretations of whether the $48.8 billion foreign bill would provide a huge increase in foreign aid or a slight cut.

Democrats argued that the measure represents a $1.2 billion cut of more than 2 percent from current-year funding. Republicans countered that the measure would provide a $12.2 billion, a 33 percent increase over 2009 levels. The difference of opinion involves whether "emergency" money provided in fiscal 2009 war funding bills should be part of the calculation for whether the pending measure exceeds current levels.

The truth is somewhere in-between, but at a minimum, the House measure provides a 4 percent increase over current funding. That's because Democrats used the war funding bill passed in June to pre-fund $2.4 billion worth of next year's aid to Israel, Egypt and other countries.

Senate at work on bills

Across the Capitol, the Senate pressed to finish a $42.9 billion homeland security bill amid a welter of end-of-the-week activity on the 12 annual appropriations bills for the agency operating budgets set by Congress each year.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., offered a plan to allow people in the U.S. to order lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada over the Internet.

And earlier Thursday, Senate Appropriations panel Democrats voted to permanently reverse a policy in effect under recent Republican administrations that banned giving U.S. taxpayer money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information.

The 17-11 vote by the Appropriations Committee would give the existing policy -- set by Obama by executive order days after taking office -- the force of law. That means the next Republican president would not be able to put the ban back in place with the stroke of a pen as has been recent practice.

Outnumbered Republicans said the move by panel Democrats would effectively subsidize overseas abortions and would guarantee a floor imbroglio that could imperil passage of the bill, covering foreign aid and diplomatic programs, which otherwise enjoys bipartisan support.

In addition to the foreign aid bill, the Senate committee approved funding for energy and water programs and began debate on a measure for the Treasury Department and other agencies.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., won approval of a plan to ease Bush administration rules requiring upfront payment from Cuba for imports of U.S. food. Dorgan said the Treasury Department is refusing to abide by an earlier attempt passed by Congress to effectively waive the Bush rule.