House Sets Up Battle on Funding Social Programs
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — House Republicans are laying the groundwork for another battle with President Obama over spending and domestic policy with a bill that would cut some of his favorite health and education programs, tie the hands of the National Labor Relations Board and eliminate federal grants for Planned Parenthood clinics.
The bill, which finances the Departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services, would prohibit Mr. Obama from spending more money to carry out the new health care law until all legal challenges to the law were resolved.
The bill stipulates that no more federal money could be spent on the government’s main family planning program, Title X of the Public Health Service Act, established more than 40 years ago. The program provides services to more than five million people a year at more than 4,500 clinics.
Under the bill, no money “may be made available for any purpose” to Planned Parenthood clinics unless they certify that they will not perform abortions. The clinics provide a wide range of health services and perform more than 300,000 abortions a year.
The bill does not provide any money for Mr. Obama’s school improvement program known as Race to the Top.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/us/politics/house-sets-up-battle-on-labor-education-and-health-funding.html?hp=&pagewanted=print