WASHINGTON - Congress passed nearly $8 billion in tax breaks for Gulf Coast businesses on Friday but denied federal help for casinos, liquor stores and golf courses.

Almost four months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the coast, destroying businesses and jobs, lawmakers responded to President Bush ‘s appeal for revitalizing the region with a special enterprise zone.

"It'll help to get our local government back on its feet, and it'll help to get our businesses incentivized to come back," said Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. "It‘ll make a huge contribution to restoring and rebuilding our city."

"If there is a force even more powerful than the storms that devastated the gulf region, it is the American tradition of entrepreneurship and innovation," said Treasury Secretary John Snow .

A narrowly drawn exception, preventing taxpayer dollars from subsidizing gambling, means companies could consider their hotels and restaurants apart from attached casinos and take advantage of some of the tax breaks.

"It‘s totally bad policy. It‘s totally ridiculous. It‘s totally hypocritical," he said. "But this is almost $8 billion. We had to get it done."

Other portions of the bill offer special tax-exempt bond authority to rebuild ruined infrastructure, tax breaks to rehabilitate buildings and expanded tax credits to build more low-income housing in the region.

Small timber operations and public utilities would get special aid. Students in Gulf Coast colleges and universities would see their education tax credits double.

The bill also incorporates some other unfinished tax business. It would extend an expiring law that lets soldiers count their combat pay toward the earned income tax credit, a benefit designed to pull low-income workers out of poverty.