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In these dire fiscal times, when even the sacred programs are no longer sacred, Republican leaders have still been able to identify a few that they think deserve more money.

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NIKKI KAHN/ THE WASHINGTON POST – House Speaker John Boehner’s (Ohio) actions renew a fight he lost two years ago, when opponents killed a voucher program over concerns that it robbed resources from public schools.

Security for congressmen is slated for a boost, after the Tucson shootings. Aid to Israel would grow. Veterans would get more money for their health care.

And then there’s a little-known program, which gives money to disadvantaged District students to attend private schools, that would get an additional $2.3 million — thanks largely to one powerful patron, House Speaker John A. Boehner .

In his opening gambit as the House’s top leader, Boehner has put his name and new-found clout behind a pair of efforts to give poor students a chance to attend private schools and, in the process, boost the city’s struggling Catholic schools.

In addition to the extra $2.3 million in the House-passed spending bill for 2011, Boehner has also submitted a bill that would authorize an additional $20 million per year over the next five years. That bill, the only one that bears Boehner’s name this year, was approved by a House committee last week.

The speaker’s actions renew a fight he lost two years ago, when opponents killed a voucher program over concerns that it robbed resources from public schools. On Monday, after President Obama renewed his push for education reform at an Arlington County middle school, House Republicans linked the president’s success on his goals to his willingness to embrace Boehner’s.

City leaders remain divided on the issue, and some resent the speaker’s efforts, saying they are just the latest unwanted example of Republican lawmakers using the District as a testing ground for their pet policy experiments.

At a House hearing this month, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said that if Republicans were really concerned about improving education in the District they would devote more funding to public alternatives, such as charter schools.

“The inescapable conclusion is that the Republicans believe they can indulge their personal and ideological preferences with impunity here in the District,” Norton said.

Congressional Democrats and D.C. officials have long accused Republicans on the Hill of imposing their own agendas on the District. In 1998, for instance, District residents voted to allow medical marijuana use, but congressional Republicans quickly put a stop to it. City officials were finally able to go forward with the idea a dozen years later, after Democrats had taken control of Congress.

The GOP also forbade the District from using its own money to run needle-exchange programs for drug addicts and provide abortions for low-income women. Those prohibitions were lifted by Democrats in 2009, but House Republicans are trying to reinstate the bans.

Boehner argues that his plan would create opportunities, rather than restrictions, for city residents. He wants local students to have the same chance he did: to follow a Catholic school path that he credits with helping him rise from the working-class suburbs of Cincinnati to the most powerful man in Congress.

“I just think it’s horrendous that you’ve got one of the worst school districts in the country right here in the District of Columbia,” Boehner said in a late January interview in his Capitol office, adding: “We’ve cut a lot of money out of the budget over the last month. We’ve got a lot more we’re going to cut. But I think we can afford to do this.”

Boehner’s closest allies on the Hill said the issue will serve as an early test of his relationship with the Obama White House.

“This is very, very important to him,” said Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.). “So the White House would be wise to take that under consideration.”

Boehner said that Obama’s willingness to compromise on the D.C. measure would foster goodwill, and perhaps smooth the path for Obama’s ambitious school reform agenda, which includes revising the No Child Left Behind law.

“Of course, it would,” Boehner said. “It’s human nature. He’s got things that are important to him; I’ve got things that are important to me.”

Before he became speaker, Boehner, 61, was a regular at Catholic schools in the District, visiting more than a dozen and serving several times as a “mystery reader” in classrooms.

“It’s just Boehner and the kids,” said Elizabeth Ross, director of development for the Consortium of Catholic Academies, who was present for the visits.

At January’s State of the Union address, Boehner devoted his entire suite in the gallery above the House floor to students, parents and teachers from District Catholic schools. The next day, he joined Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) to introduce their bill renewing the voucher program.

Students who were already getting scholarships two years ago continue to receive money, and the program has benefited about 3,000 students over the past seven years, giving them up to $7,500 a year.

Boehner “has been the one person that we could always depend on,” said Virginia Walden Ford, executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, who was a guest at the State of the Union.

While his legislative work on school choice traces back 25 years to his tenure in the Ohio state House of Representative, his first exposure was more personal.

When Boehner attended Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati, his parents paid half the tuition and the local Catholic parish paid the other half.

The second oldest of 12 children, Boehner said he paid for several of his younger brothers to attend Moeller — and that experience taught him a lesson he later incorporated into his thinking about school policy.

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President Obama and Jeb Bush, the Republican former governor of Florida, joined in an awkward partnership on Friday, when Mr. Obama visited a high school here to push his plans to boost education funding and revamp No Child Left Behind, the school policy bill signed into law by Mr. Bush’s brother, the former president.

The Obama-Bush appearance was designed to underscore what Mr. Obama hopes will be a bipartisan effort on Capitol Hill to renew the education bill at a time when he is unlikely to get Republican cooperation on many other domestic initiatives. He chose the venue, Miami Central High School – a school that was once failing but has since turned itself around – because Mr. Bush suggested it.

But as Congress grapples with ways to cut the federal budget, Mr. Obama is also proposing to increase education spending by 11 percent – a proposal that is likely to run into significant opposition from Republicans. Mr. Bush did not make his views on the budget known. But as the president promoted his funding plans, Mr. Bush sat expressionless on a stool behind him, his hands clasped tightly in his lap.

“If we want more good news on the jobs front then we’ve got to make more investments in education,’’ Mr. Obama told students in a crowded gymnasium. He went on, “I want everybody to understand: Our job is not just to cut. Even as we find ways to cut spending what we can’t do is cut back on investments like education.’’

The two men seemed to dance around one another, at least in public. During a tour of a technology classroom, they did not speak, and barely made eye contact. Later, when Mr. Bush gave a brief introduction of Mr. Obama, he said simply, “As you have said, Mr. President, education achievement is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue, it is an issue of national priority.’’

And when Mr. Obama referred to Mr. Bush in his remarks, there was one name that did not cross his lips: George.

“Aside from being the former governor of the state, Jeb is best known as the brother of — ’’ Mr. Obama said, with an elongated pause, before adding: “Marvin Bush.’’ He went on, “Apparently the rest of the family also did some work back in Washington – back in the day.’’

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SAN DIEGO – Most of the chatter at the Republican Governors Association’s annual meeting here has focused on chest thumping over the party’s recent wins. So, during a panel titled “Good Policy = Good Politics,” most of the sitting governors encouraged newly elected state executives to trust their instincts and have faith that doing the right thing would only help them in the long run.

But Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey suggested that the process might not always be pretty.

Referring to his battles with the state’s teachers union, Gov. Christie implored governors to ignore political advisers who urge against taking on powerful or popular groups. Like, say, the teachers.

“Most people love their public school teachers,” he told the audience. “I love public school teachers, too, but I can’t stand their union.”

When Mr. Christie tried to persuade the union to accept a pay freeze and contribute several hundred dollars for their health care plan, he said, they called it the “greatest assault on public education” in the state’s history.

With that, Mr. Christie really got going.

To believe that, he said, he would have to believe this scene was going to occur in his house: his daughter comes home with lackluster grades. When he asks why, Mr. Christie continued, she answers by saying: “You made her take a pay freeze this year. Now she has to put 1 and a half percent into her health plan. Dad, stop the madness. Give them the 5 percent pay increase.”

The audience burst into laughter, a first for the morning.

“Now you laugh,” Mr. Christie said. “But that’s the crap I have to listen to in New Jersey.”

Mr. Christie concluded with an oft-quoted thesis in politics: When you have political capital, spend it. You will never be as popular as you are in the first month in office.

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