Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that reduces federal spending by $49.91 billion over five years by decreasing the amount of funds spent on Medicaid, Medicare, agriculture, employee pensions, conservation, student loans, and other projects.

Highlights:

• Authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to reduce the total amount of payments given to farmers for covered commodities, including peanuts (Sec. 1101).

• Repeals the Secretary of Agriculture's authority to issue Cotton User Marketing Certificates of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 in order to alter "Cotton Competitiveness Provisions" (Sec. 1103).

• Amends the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act to rescind $15 million in funding for Watershed Rehabilitation Program and terminate its multi-year availability of funding (Sec. 1201).

• Sets funding for Conservation Security Programs at 2.21 billion through 2010 and $5.73 billion through 2015 (Sec. 1203).

• Terminates Commodity Credit Corporation funds used to carry out renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements programs (Sec. 1301).

• Terminates rural firefighters and emergency personnel grants and rural business investment grants (Sec. 1405).

• Terminates the multi-year availability of funds for future food and agriculture systems (Sec. 1501).

• Authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to purchase $152 million for FY 2006 in commodities and $100 million for each remaining year through FY 211 for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and mandates that $12 million be used to directly fund Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Rita disaster sites (Sec. 1602).

• Authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to pay State agencies 100 percent of the administrative costs incurred in the certification of, and issuance of benefits to, applicant households that become eligible to receive food stamp benefits under the disaster food stamp program eligibility standards in effect during the Presidentially declared emergency in response to Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Rita (Sec. 1604).

• Requires families receiving federal financial assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to participate in the Family Self-Sufficiency Plan, in which States receive grants for determining the skills, work history, and employability of participating individuals, assisting families in achieving their "maximum degree of self-sufficiency," and monitoring an individual's activities and progress towards self-sufficiency (Sec. 2011).

• Establishes a Fatherhood Program that allows public entities and nonprofits to design projects and activities that promote positive father involvement in families, enhance job skills for unemployed or low-income fathers, improve a father's abilities to manage family business affairs, and provide premarital education programs to couples (Sec. 2015).

• Prohibits any funding of grants that would promote a contract or entity that takes one or more US employees offshore for employment (Sec. 2018).

• Authorizes additional appropriations of $13.5 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant program for FY 2006 through 2010 (Sec. 2023).

• Sets student loan fees, including one percent of the principal amount of the loan for consolidated loans (Secs. 2114-2117).

• Grants students affected by Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Rita a grace period or deferment on their education loans if they did not enroll in another institution (Sec. 2119).

• Reorganizes pensions plan laws on how companies operate and organize their plans; specifically companies with plans that pay the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) (Sec. 2201).

• Establishes that under Pharmacy Reimbursement Limits, Federal financial participation shall not be available for reimbursement of the ingredient cost of a covered outpatient drug in excess of the Federal upper limit for that drug established (Sec. 3101).

• Amends the Social Security Act so that children's hospitals can participate in the Drug Discount Program (Sec. 3104).

• Extends the authorization of how far back a State can look back in order to determine if an individual should have Medicaid services terminated or be denied eligibility if an individual disposed of multiple assets at less than fair market value (Sec. 3111).

• Determines that an individual shall not be eligible for medical assistance in a nursing facility or any other facility that provides long-term care if that individual's home equity interest exceeds $500,000 (Sec. 3114).

• Grants States the option to impose premiums and cost sharing for any group of individuals and for any type of services similar to private health plans (and may vary such premiums and cost sharing among such groups or types, including through the use of tiered cost sharing for prescription drugs) (Sec. 3121).

• Taxes managed care organizations unless a State has already imposed taxes (Sec. 3142).

• Provides 100 Percent Federal matching payments that were used for medical assistance to areas affected by Hurricane Katrina (Sec. 3201).

• Ends coverage of direct delivery of certain foster care services such as assessments of adoption placements, foster care subsidies, recruiting or interviewing potential foster care parents, and home investigations by redefining the term "case management services" (Sec. 3146).

• Requires spectrums reclaimed from analog television services to be auctioned off not later than January 7, 2008 (Sec. 3403).

• Makes grants available for the Federal Housing Authority to encourage loans for multifamily properties (FHA) (Sec. 4102).

• Raises the limit on bank deposits protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Act from $100,000 to $130,000 (Sec. 4003).

• Amends the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to include coverage for certain employee benefit plans such as pass-through deposit insurance and doubles the limit of coverage of deposit insurance for certain retirement accounts (Sec. 4003).

• Creates the new Deposit Insurance Fund by combining the protections of Bank Insurance Fund and Savings Association Insurance Fund (Sec. 4012).

• Proposes an increase in visa fees with respect to immigration services for intracompany transferees (Sec. 5101).

• Reorganizes Judges on the Circuit Court of Appeals, District Courts and reauthorizes Bankruptcy Judgeships (Secs. 5301-5306).

• Instructs the Secretary of the Interior to work with the directors of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management in developing a leasing plan to open the Arctic Coastal Plain for the exploration, development and production of oil and gas resources (Secs. 6101-6112). 

• Addresses multiple mining and mill issues concerning claims, development and maintenance fees (Secs. 6201-6207).

• Disposes public land in Nevada and Idaho and specifies disposition of proceeds (Sec. 6301-6314).

• Encourages the development of oil shale and tar sands on Federal lands within Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming (Sec. 6401).

• Establishes a Outer Continental Shelf Leasing Program that works in coordination with adjacent state laws (Sec. 6510).

• Increases tonnage charges collected on vessels entering the US by amending the original act and raising the charges per ton (Sec. 7001).

• Redefines "two-parent families" as "healthy, two-parent married families" in order for families to receive financial assistance from TANF programs and grants (Sec. 8101).

Full Bill Text

Full Bill Text