He said their claims that midnight basketball and other programs provided under the bill were nothing more than pork "just make my blood boil."

"Reading rooms are the equivalent of midnight basketball - they're just social programs," said Mr. Gardner.

Head Start alone, or midnight basketball alone, or more testing alone, won't do it.

What they may not know is that the idea of midnight basketball was promoted by George Bush when he was President.

The guys in midnight basketball are marginal individuals.

Within two years they will be calling for the programs they have been wanting to slash: welfare, Medicaid, school aid and perhaps even midnight basketball.

If Republicans want to fiddle with the crime bill this summer, they'll have a hard time hitting me on midnight basketball.

"It's hard in Oklahoma to understand midnight basketball when our largest cities have all imposed curfews," he said.

It essentially eliminates money that the Democrats had set aside for prevention programs, the best known of which was midnight basketball.

She seems to advocate some specific programs: mandatory training in child rearing for parents receiving welfare, medical-advice hot lines, midnight basketball and others.