Buried in a spending measure passed by the U.S. House of Representatives is a provision that could thwart Republican efforts to scuttle legislation designed to bolster the federal direct-loan program. The provision, which appears on the final page of the House's spending blueprint for the 2008 fiscal year, simply instructs the House education committee to wring $75-million from the mandatory programs it oversees over the next five years. Republicans, however, read the instruction as a sign that Democrats plan to use budget reconciliation--intended as a deficit-reduction process--to advance the proposed Student Aid Reward Act, which would reward colleges that switch to direct lending by offering them increased aid for their students. The direct-loan program provides loans directly to students through their colleges, bypassing the rival guaranteed-loan program, in which private lenders provide government-backed loans to students. "Simply put, the majority is trying to take advantage of the reconciliation process to jam through an expansion of the federally run direct-loan program, knowing that strong opposition to expansion of this program would prohibit it from being successfully added to the Higher Education Act if its reauthorization were proceeding through regular order," said Representative Howard P. (Buck) McKeon of California, the senior Republican on the education committee.