House Republicans today released a preliminary spending bill that would slash more than six billion dollars from the budgets of the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.The draft bill also bans NPR member stations from using federal funds to buy NPR programming.
The draft legislation reduces spending next year on labor, health and education by about three percent overall. It carves out more than $8 billion from programs related to the new healthcare law and it blocks any funds for developing regulations on coal mine dust.
Spending is also blocked for a new Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. The bill takes aim at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by rescinding more than three hundred million dollars already budgeted for the next two years. And once again, House Republicans would ban any NPR member station from using CPB funds to buy programming from NPR. Previous attempts to do so have gone nowhere.
(David Welna is NPR's congressional correspondent.)
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