WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders have moved from balking at big cuts in Medicaid and other programs to embracing them, driven by pent-up anger from fiscal conservatives concerned about runaway spending and by the leadership's weakening hold on power.

Beginning this week, House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, and will consider across-the-board cuts in other programs.

Only last month, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other GOP leaders quashed demands within their party for budget cuts to pay for the soaring cost of hurricane relief.

DeLay told reporters Sept. 13 that 11 years of Republican rule had already pared the federal budget "pretty good." If lawmakers had suggestions for cuts, DeLay said he would listen, but he was not offering anything up.

But three weeks later, faced with a revolt among conservatives sharply critical of him for resisting spending cuts, DeLay told a closed meeting of the House Republican Conference, "I failed you," according to a number of House members and GOP aides.

Then, in a nod to the most hard-core fiscal conservatives, DeLay volunteered, "You guys filled a void in the leadership."

The abrupt shift reflects a changed political dynamic in the House in which a faction of fiscal conservatives — known as the Republican Study Committee (RSC) — has gained the upper hand because of DeLay's criminal indictments in Texas, widespread criticism of the Republicans' handling of Hurricane Katrina and uncertainty over the future of the leadership, according to lawmakers and aides.

Now, cutting the budget is at the center of the agenda in the House.

"No one wants to have an argument with friends, but that argument facilitated the debate that led to the package [of cuts] that [House Speaker Dennis] Hastert has now put out there," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., chairman of the RSC and a leading proponent of cuts to offset new government spending.

But the Republicans could be taking a big risk by cutting Medicaid programs for the poor while their standing in the polls has plummeted and the Democrats gear up for a huge fight.

"We have seen a sea change in the budget policies of House Republicans," said Thomas Kahn, the Democratic staff director of the House Budget Committee. "Clearly, the RSC's influence over their budget policies is in the ascendancy."

The RSC launched a public crusade for spending cuts last month, with its leaders using news conferences, television appearances and media interviews to all but accuse the GOP leadership of profligacy. House leaders at first tried to crush the RSC, or at least push its efforts behind closed doors.

But a Texas grand jury's Sept. 28 indictment of DeLay, on charges of conspiring to inject illegal corporate contributions into the 2002 Texas state elections, forced him to step aside as majority leader and changed the balance of power in the House.

Ripe for revolt

A revolt has been stirring within the House GOP ranks for months.

Since President Bush came to office, federal spending has grown by a third, to $2.47 trillion from $1.86 trillion, while record budget surpluses turned to record deficits. Conservative activists had begun pressing Republicans hard on what they saw as Big Government Conservatism.

"Congress had found itself very much on the defensive," said Ronald Utt, a federal budget expert at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Then came Katrina in late August.

Lawmakers rushed back to Washington, eager to demonstrate their sympathy for hurricane victims after Bush was widely criticized for his tardy response.

Conservatives' plans to cut taxes, repeal the estate tax and make the first cuts in Medicaid and other entitlement programs in nearly a decade appeared lost. Some Republicans even suggested it might be time to raise taxes, joining a chorus of Democrats pressing to roll back some of Bush's tax cuts.

"There was an element of the last straw in this," Pence said.

By Sept. 7, Congress had enacted a $10.5 billion hurricane-relief measure, with another $52 billion bill pending.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, went to the House Rules Committee with an amendment to pay for the next installment with a one-time, 3 percent cut to all federal programs subject to Congress' annual spending bills, outside of defense, homeland security and veterans affairs.

The move was crushed. Instead, House leaders put the Katrina funding up for a vote under rules reserved for non-controversial bills, such as the renaming of a courthouse, no amendments allowed.

Conservatives were furious, said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., another RSC leader — but not nearly as furious as they would become.

"Operation Offset"

Pence had announced a news conference for Sept. 14 to unveil "Operation Offset," a specific menu of spending cuts that would more than pay for hurricane relief.

On Sept. 13, DeLay suggested that "after 11 years of Republican majority, we've pared [the government] down pretty good."

Then he issued what conservatives took as a challenge: "My answer to those that want to offset the spending is, 'Sure, bring me the offsets,' " he said. "I will be glad to do it, but no one has been able to come up with any yet."

That afternoon, Pence attended a leadership meeting in Hastert's conference room, where he got an earful, according to several leadership aides.

It was one thing to suggest Republicans consider budget cuts to pay for Katrina relief, Pence was told, but it was quite another to call a news conference. And to suggest the RSC was reining in a free-spending party was out of bounds.

The appeals appeared only to harden the conservatives' resolve.

Some of the criticism of DeLay was unfounded, said his spokesman, Kevin Madden. Delay had challenged lawmakers to bring forward budget cuts but also emphasized that cuts already ordered in the budget would go through.

But two close confidants of DeLay, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize their relationship with him, said the still-powerful Texan knows he and other Republican leaders stirred up a hornet's nest that day.

"He screwed up," one of the confidants said of DeLay's comments. "People were completely taken aback. That more than anything else was the reason Republicans were upset."

On conservative talk shows and the Internet and in newspaper columns, Republicans were taking a beating from the right.

Then on Sept. 28, DeLay was indicted. Under House rules, DeLay had to relinquish his post as majority leader, but he pleaded with Republicans not to permanently replace him while he was fighting the charges.

Prevent a fight

Leaders had no choice but to firm up support with their conservative base and try to head off a leadership fight, lawmakers and leadership aides said. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., was named to temporarily fill the majority leader's position.

After several meetings, Hastert emerged from a closed-door Republican session the night of Oct. 6 to announce he had gotten the message.

Cuts to entitlement programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and farm supports would be raised from $35 billion to $50 billion in the massive budget bill that will be compiled in November. Republicans would push an additional, across-the-board spending cut for 2006 and would try to trim programs already funded.

"We went from being in the doghouse to being feted as the heart and soul of the party," the RSC's Flake said.