House Budget Cuts Vital Services

For the third time in recent weeks, the Congress had refused to go along with cuts to vital services serving the poor. The latest vote came Thursday afternoon. However, the outcome remained in doubt until the final votes were cast early Friday morning. As the AP c/o Yahoo News reported:

Regrouping with new concessions on food stamp cuts, Speaker Dennis Hastert ordered the House back into session shortly after 8 p.m. EST with idea of getting a vote sometime after midnight on the five-year deficit-reduction plan. The outcome remained in doubt, particularly after the defeat of the one-year spending bill for the Education, Labor and Health and Human Services departments.

Both bills are part of a campaign by Republican leaders to burnish their party's budget-cutting credentials as they try to reduce a deficit swelled by spending on the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina. In both cases, GOP moderates balked. The 224-209 vote against a $602 billion spending bill for health, education and labor programs disrupted plans by the Republican leaders to finish work on 11 spending bills that would pay for government operations and freeze many agency budgets through next September.

This was great news, and I'd hoped this latest victory would hold. How do we explain it? Maybe it was the thousands of calls and letters from ordinary citizens all over the country. Or maybe the Congress read this week's Gospel verse, from Matthew 25:31-46 - Either way, this has left me feeling encouraged. I'll try to update this post if anything changes or if you are needed to make more calls on behalf of the least of these.

Update: Your calls and e-mails will be urgently needed to try to make the best of this.