For Republicans, the compromise reduces funding to two of their least-favorite agencies -- the Internal Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. Overall, federal spending would be lower than the final budget of President George W. Bush's administration.
. The White Man's Burden  is a poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling. It was originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899, with the subtitle The United States and the Philippine Islands.
The mention of slavery was a stark reminder for those who may have forgotten the White House's disturbing history or for those whose associate the iconic home with freedom and not the misery created in its absence. Clarence Lusane, author of The Black History of the White House, isn't one of those people. The chair of Howard University's Political Science Department, Lusane has done extensive research on the enslaved people who built the structure and later lived among 10 of the United States' first 12 presidents.