CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
May 8, 2008 – Updated 12:57 p.m.

With Democrats Divided, Senate Panel Delays Vote on War Supplemental

By Liriel Higa and David Clarke, CQ Staff

As House Democrats struggled to bridge their divisions over a war supplemental spending bill, the White House budget director warned that President Bush will veto the legislation if they persist in trying to add new mandatory spending for expanded veterans benefits and extended jobless benefits.

Growing dissension forced House Democrats to delay until next week bringing the supplemental to the floor. As a result, the Senate Appropriations Committee postponed a scheduled Thursday markup of its own bill until May 15.

Panel Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.V., said he was delaying the mark up at the request of House and Senate leadership, but warned, “My patience is growing thin.”

House Democratic leaders refused to hold an Appropriations Committee markup of their version of the bill, and they infuriated Republicans by excluding them from a role in drafting the package.

But the tactic may have caused more pain than it avoided. In protest, House Republicans have dramatically slowed floor action on other legislation all week through repeated parliamentary votes.

“We are still very concerned about the lack of responsibility on some of the spending — the mandatory spending, the automatic spending,” said White House Budget Director Jim Nussle in a Thursday interview.

In addition, Democrats want to include funding restrictions — such as timelines for withdrawing troops — that Nussle said are not acceptable. These restrictions will likely be stripped from the bill by the Senate during floor consideration.

Tiff Over Mandatory Spending

A revolt by conservative House Blue Dog Democrats was the ultimate reason why Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pushed off House consideration of the bill until next week.

The Blue Dogs rejected the measure’s proposed new mandatory spending, which would not be offset by tax increases or entitlement cuts elsewhere.

The House bill would stay within President Bush’s overall request of $183.8 billion, but the Democratic leaders’ calculations did not include the cost of a temporary extension of unemployment benefits and a major expansion of GI Bill education benefits for veterans.

The Blue Dogs are ardent proponents of pay-as-you-go budget rules, and they bristled at the long-term cost of the GI Bill provision — an estimated $51.8 billion over 10 years.

Pelosi argued Wednesday that Congress was preparing “to spend nearly $200 billion on the war in Iraq, and it’s not paid for. So I think it’s OK for us not to pay for the education of our troops when they come home.”

The Blue Dogs were threatening to vote against the rule for consideration of the House bill, which could have doomed it, so Democratic leaders decided to back off and regroup.

Blue Dog member Allen Boyd, D-Fla., said they are working with leaders and the Ways and Means Committee to try to find offsets for the mandatory spending, but he didn’t have any specifics.

Blue Dog John Tanner, D-Tenn., who sits on Ways and Means, said concerns were not centered on the expansion of veterans’ education benefits, but rather the lack of offsets: “It’s the principle of adding mandatory spending on an emergency supplemental,” he said.

Boyd said part of the problem was that they didn’t learn of the issue until Tuesday.

Describing his meetings with Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., as “very productive,” Mike Ross, D-Ark., the Blue Dogs’ co-chairman for communications, said that ultimately leadership, not the Blue Dogs, is responsible for finding the money to pay for the benefits.

“We don’t want to be in the position of having to come up with a way to pay for someone else’s bill,” he said, “That’s not our job, that’s not our role.”

Ross said that if leadership doesn’t come through with offsets, an “overwhelming majority” of coalition members will surely oppose the bill.

Pelosi, asked at a news conference how party leaders would iron out the differences with the Blue Dogs, said, “Well, how we iron out everything — by working together. Our Blue Dogs, no one surpasses our Blue Dogs in our commitment, their commitment to our veterans. And I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”

Pelosi added that she was confident the leadership could get a bill to the floor next week “that has the full consensus of the Democrats and hopefully can attract a large number of Republicans, as well.”

Democrats intend to send Bush the supplemental by Memorial Day recess, she said, though she would not predict whether the president would sign it.

Bush has vowed to veto any bill that exceeds his funding requests — $108.1 billion in war funds for the remainder of fiscal 2008, plus $70 billion in fiscal 2009 for the war and $5.8 billion for Gulf Coast levee reconstruction in fiscal 2009.

Nussle said he didn’t think Blue Dogs would win concessions from their leaders.

“I think it’s PR only,” Nussle said of the delay “The Blue Dogs have been rolled on this before by the leadership, they were rolled on the budget, I think they are going to be rolled on this too. So, I think they will proceed next week.”

Indeed, Blue Dogs already were facing friendly fire Thursday.

Several members of the liberal Out of Iraq and Progressive Caucuses began Thursday to push back against the Blue Dog’s stance, calling for swift action to bring the legislation to the floor in its original form.

Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., said liberal members were meeting with Blue Dogs and leadership to pressure them to stop holding up the supplemental bill.

“The Blue Dogs are holding it hostage,” Grijalva said, criticizing that group for supporting war money, which also isn’t paid for, but opposing veterans’ benefits that are a cost of war.

“There is some inconsistency on the part of  Blue Dogs that they have to look at real closely.”

Senate Less Concerned With Request

When it does mark up the spending bill, the Senate committee plans to split war funding and domestic funding into separate amendments. When the House acts on its bill, the full Senate will call up that measure, and the committee’s two amendments will be offered on the floor.

The Senate panel is not attempting to stay within Bush’s aggregate request totals; its bill would provide $193 billion, about $9 billion more than the House version.

Among the funds that Bush did not request, and the House did not include, are $490 million for so-called Byrne grants to assist state and local law enforcement agencies, $275 million for the Food and Drug administration, $451 million for the Federal Highway Administration’s emergency relief program and $400 million to help rural counties where federal timber royalties have declined.

The Senate version also would provide $1.2 billion to promote long-term economic development. That money would be disbursed to NASA, the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Energy Department. That includes $400 million to the NIH for about 700 research grants.

The Senate bill also proposes a ban on “specialty hospitals,” which are typically physician-owned facilities specializing in one line of care, like surgery, cardiac care, or orthopedics. These hospitals often focus on the most profitable specialties and have been accused of siphoning off more lucrative, less medically complex patients from general hospitals.

The Senate language would prohibit the construction of any new physician-owned specialty hospitals. There are an estimated 100 to 200 such hospitals already in operation, which would be grandfathered in, but would have to disclose their ownership interests to patients. The provision would create a $2.4 billion savings over 10 years, according to a Senate GOP aide, mostly by decreasing the growth in Medicare procedures.

Polytrauma centers run by the Veterans Affairs Department — which aid in the treatment and rehabilitation of Iraq war veterans — would receive $437 million for construction.

Gulf Coast Provisions

The Senate bill would provide $10.4 billion for hurricane recovery and other natural disasters, $4.6 billion more than requested by Bush. According to Democratic Louisiana Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, the Gulf Coast, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita in 2005, would receive $8.7 billion. That includes $5.8 million for levees, with a $1.3 billion state share, down from the $1.5 billion state match Bush proposed in his budget. Other Gulf Coast provisions include $75 for criminal justice needs, $350 million for hospitals in Louisiana and Mississippi, and $76 million for housing vouchers.

The Senate measure also would allocate $500 million more in fiscal 2008 for an international food assistance program. Bush had requested $350 million for fiscal 2008 and $395 million in fiscal 2009 for the program.

Josh Rogin and Drew Armstrong contributed to this story.

First posted May 8, 2008 9:36 a.m.

Source: CQ Today Online News
Round-the-clock coverage of news from Capitol Hill.
© 2008 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.

?
Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now. <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ >
?
_______________________________________________