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A $2.6 trillion budget barely approved by Congress will cut projected spending on Medicaid for the poor and lock in tax cuts.
Democrats opposed the spending outline passed late Thursday. They said the budget reflects the president's misplaced priorities by freezing or trimming health, education and agriculture programs while cutting taxes by as much as $106 billion over five years.
The vote was 214-211 in the House and 52-47 in the Senate. Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg said it is a first step toward confronting the "massive problem" of meeting the nation's defense and domestic spending needs while coping with relentlessly rising baby boomer health and retirement costs.
Bush said the budget plan "protects America, helps economic growth, funds our priorities and keeps us on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009."
It was the effort to control spending on the Medicaid health program for the poor - one of the three big entitlement programs, along with Medicare and Social Security - that created the biggest obstacle to agreement on the budget. Medicaid was last cut in 1997.
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