But State Rep. Angelo Scaccia (D-Hyde Park),vice chair of the House Ways and Means Committee,said that he did not expect the amendment to beapproved.

"We've been trying and we've been succeeding inholding the bottom line. We keep tellingrepresentatives that they must propose a cutsomewhere else equivalent to the spendingincrease," Scaccia said. Most lawmakers areunwilling to make such compromises, he added.

"If things were different, then we would bemore than happy to give the students the money.But right now they are competing with otherinterests and they're all asking for the samedollar," he said.

Later, during formal debate on the Housebudget, Republican legislators foughtunsuccessfully to eliminate several speciallegislative committees, including panels ontaxation, criminal law and other issues. The GOPrepresentatives said those committees were costlyand unnecessary.

But House Majority Leader Charles Flaherty(D-Cambridge), in a moving speech which many saidsounded more like a defense of the Dukakis budgetthan the House plan, criticized Republicanattempts to cut the budget further.

"We're not in a budget crisis, we have a budgetglitch," Flaherty said.

As the normally raucous House chamber fellsilent, Flaherty told fellow lawmakers that thestate must now pick up the slack for a negligentfederal government and local communitiesconstrained by Proposition 2 1/2, the 1980property tax cap referendum.

Invoking the name of the late Vice PresidentHubert H. Humphrey, Flaherty said, "I hope wecontinue our commitment to provide for theservices that the people of the Commonwealth havecome to expect and deserve in order to meet ourbasic commitments to the have-nots, thehave-littles and the anxious haves.