WASHINGTON – For Republican leaders, it's a tough sell: how to justify billions in tax cuts at the same time they're throttling back spending for food stamps, Medicaid, student loans and other elements of the social safety net.

The juxtaposition leaves them open to allegations of heartlessness, fiscal irresponsibility and misguided priorities.

But advocates call the plan a modest step toward reining in the runaway budget by trimming $50 billion over five years from spending on anti-poverty and other social programs – a sliver of the $14 trillion the government will spend.

They note that all the programs would still grow, albeit more slowly.

"Our children will drown in a sea of debt or a sea of taxes if we don't reform these entitlement programs," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, a leader among House conservatives pushing for budget cuts. "Food stamps will be up. Medicare will be up. Medicaid will be up.... Last I looked in Webster's dictionary, 'cut' means to reduce."

But Democrats and advocates for the poor characterize the spending shifts as real cuts with real consequences.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that 300,000 people would lose food stamps under the House GOP plan.

That includes at least 36,000 in Texas. And the state would lose more than $900 million in Medicaid funds over the five years.

It's misleading to say spending growth would simply slow down, said Scott McCown, who heads the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, which advocates for low-income Texans.

With populations and inflation rising, stagnant funding simply cannot keep up , he argued.

The push for spending cuts has proved a huge headache for Republicans, exposing rifts between conservatives and moderates and between the House and Senate.

Those divisions were laid bare in dramatic fashion Thursday when Republican moderates teamed with unified Democrats to defeat a separate bill that would have cut education spending by $59 billion and frozen spending on Pell grants for college students.

Hours later, the House began debating the $50 billion spending-cut package after House GOP leaders spent the afternoon twisting arms and making 11th-hour concessions to soften the blow on the needy. One provision they dropped would have pushed 40,000 children off the free lunch program.

Critics note that the Bush tax cuts up for renewal – the Senate approved $60 billion worth Thursday and the House is aiming for $70 billion – are much bigger than the proposed spending reductions.

That would make this the first time Congress has tackled safety-net spending and ended up adding red ink.

"It's mean and it's foolish," Mr. McCown said.

Roughly 2.7 million Texans receive Medicaid, 2.4 million get food stamps and nearly 400,000 get student loans.

Since Mr. Bush took office, federal spending is up 33 percent and the national debt is up $3 trillion – statistics that vex fiscal conservatives.

Spread over five years, the $50 billion is about half of 1 percent of the $7.8 trillion in expected entitlement spending.

And conservatives note that only $14 billion in the House cuts would come from anti-poverty programs.

Farm subsidies take a hit, and there are new revenues from the auction of TV spectrum and fees paid by employers on corporate pensions.

"It's not that entitlement programs are being singled out," said Brian Riedl, lead budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

He noted that food stamp spending grew 78 percent in the past five years and would keep rising under the House plan – by 38 percent instead of 39 percent.

The proposed savings, he said, "amount to a rounding error in the federal budget... There will not be millions of children starving in the streets."

However, the savings wouldn't make a huge dent in the overall numbers. Food stamp spending represents only slightly more than 1 percent of the $2.5 trillion federal budget.

Mary Lovings, a 54-year-old Houstonian who took part in a demonstration against the budget cuts Thursday at the Capitol, sees the issue far differently than Mr. Riedl.

"You're either rich, or you're going to be poor," she said.

One of the most contentious elements of the House plan involves an effort to shave $9.4 billion from Medicaid over five years – leaving the $300 billion program to grow by about 7 percent, a hair off the pace projected if there were no cuts.

Some 53 million poor and disabled Americans depend on Medicaid.

But with health care costs rising, most states have cut back on eligibility or benefits. The federal government covers 57 percent of the tab.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, argued that Medicaid is badly in need of "common sense" reforms. His committee recommended caps on drug costs and letting states collect co-payments as high as $5, though House leaders dropped that $100 million provision to appease moderates.

Scores of low-income women from around the country joined Ms. Lovings at the Capitol on Thursday to pressure Congress, chanting "Don't shred the safety net!"

The fact that the fight played out a week before Thanksgiving hasn't helped on the public relations front. The left-leaning

MoveOn.org staged mock holiday feasts this week outside more than 100 congressional offices to protest the cuts.

Congress set the proposed cuts in motion last spring when, by close party-line votes, they agreed to trim $35 billion from a portion of the budget that typically runs on autopilot.

A quick primer:

About a third of the budget goes to "discretionary" programs such as defense and education that are subject to annual debate.

An additional 55 percent involves "mandatory" spending. Congress sets eligibility formulas, and cutbacks require a special, optional process called "reconciliation."

This is the fourth time Congress has undertaken reconciliation in 15 years.

The other efforts were far more ambitious. Adjusted for inflation, the 1990 package cut $447 billion, for instance.

Pressure from fiscal conservatives mounted after Hurricane Katrina, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., ordered committees to squeeze $15 billion in savings beyond the initial $35 billion goal. They proposed $55 billion in all, though by late Thursday compromises whittled that to about $50 billion.

The Senate has stuck with the $35 billion target.

Its version, which may get debated today, leaves food stamps alone and doesn't affect Medicaid recipients nearly as much – differences that ensure weeks of House-Senate wrangling before any package is finalized.

"We obviously have a difference of opinion in how far we should go making those cuts," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a moderate who on Tuesday blocked Senate approval for tax cuts on capital gains and dividends, which mostly help the wealthiest taxpayers. "It's a very difficult time in America for many people who depend upon those programs."

On the House side, resistance from moderates forced GOP leaders to call off a vote last week on the spending cuts.

House Democrats reveled in the disarray across the aisle.

Ellen Vollinger, legal director at the Washington-based Food Research Action Center, which works to eradicate hunger, complained that the debate has been driven by arbitrary spending targets, not an assessment of need.

"Is the priority a tax cut for the wealthy, or making sure that kids don't go to school hungry?" Ms. Vollinger said, adding that the proposed cuts would only shift the burden to states, cities and charities. "Hungry people aren't going to be going away."

Defenders of cuts say that in times of belt-tightening, these are the sorts of hard choices required.

"When we have no more money for our veterans, where is the compassion there?" said Mr. Hensarling. "When we have no more money for student loans or Kevlar vests for our troops, where is the compassion?"

BUDGET RECONCILIATION

Congress is considering rollbacks in various entitlement programs. The House is aiming for $50 billion in savings over five years. The Senate target is $35 billion. Separately, GOP leaders hope to extend tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. Some of the proposals:

Medicaid: The House initially proposed cuts of $12 billion to the program, projected to cost the federal government $184 billion this year. Medicaid accounts for 2.6 percent of the nation's economic output and roughly 7 percent of the federal budget.

Spending has grown 49 percent since 2000. The $12 billion in proposed trims represent less than half a percent of projected Medicaid spending over the next five years. One provision would tighten eligibility rules for seniors seeking nursing home care. Other changes would cap payments for prescription drugs and let states boost co-payments for doctor visits.

Food stamps: The House plan cuts $794 million from the $33 billion program that feeds 29 million people. Food stamp spending represents slightly more than 1 percent of the $2.5 trillion federal budget. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the House cuts would push 300,000 off food stamps, including 70,000 legal immigrants who waited five years to become eligible; the new waiting period would be seven years. In Texas, 36,000 people would be affected, including 11,000 immigrants.

Child support enforcement: Aid to states would be curtailed by $7.9 billion. Texas would lose $258 million.

Other provisions are unrelated to the social safety net:

Repeal the Byrd Amendment, a trade law that lets the U.S. impose duties on countries that dump cheap goods on U.S. markets. The World Trade Organization has deemed that an unfair subsidy and authorized retaliation by 11 countries. Savings: $3.2 billion.

Cut cotton subsidies by $282 million, and other farm programs by $513 million.

Increase funding by $1 billion for a program that helps low-income households pay winter heating bills.