Posted on 12/13/2007 9:52:00 AM PST by MNJohnnie
Senate and House Democrats backed down Wednesday from a spending showdown with President Bush.
The Democrats’ capitulation Wednesday on the total domestic spending level is the latest instance of Bush prevailing on a major policy showdown. Bush and his Senate Republican allies have repeatedly beat back efforts by Democrats to place restrictions on funding for the war in Iraq as well as Democratic attempts to expand funding of children’s health insurance by $35 billion.
Democratic leaders said Wednesday that they would keep total spending at the strict $933 billion limit set by the White House. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also abandoned a proposal she supported Tuesday to eliminate lawmakers’ earmarks from spending bills after she faced stiff opposition from powerful fellow Democrats.
Pelosi told the Democratic chairmen of the House Appropriations subcommittees, the so-called cardinals, that earmarks would stay in the omnibus and that Democratic leaders would accede to cut spending to levels demanded by Bush to save 11 spending bills from a veto, said sources familiar with a meeting that took place in Pelosi’s office early Wednesday morning.
The Democratic cardinals rebelled against a plan suggested by Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) to save $9.5 billion by slashing earmarks. Obey hoped to use the money to minimize cuts to domestic programs important to Democrats.
Pelosi emphasized in a press conference Wednesday afternoon that “we don’t want the bill vetoed,” in reference to a massive omnibus that Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and House are in the midst of negotiating. She said leaders would have a better understanding of the bill’s details by mid-Thursday.
Although Democrats have accepted Bush’s spending ceiling, obstacles remain to reaching final agreement. House and Senate Democrats are pursuing different approaches to slimming the spending package.
House Democrats have elected to manipulate funding levels for various government programs to reflect their policy priorities. The House Appropriations subcommittee chairmen have been given substantial leeway to decide which programs will be cut and boosted in the process.
The Senate is expected to adopt a straight across-the-board cut without discriminating among Democratic and Republican favorites, said several Democrats briefed on leadership negotiations.
As a result, even after House and Senate appropriators shave the omnibus to Bush’s number, they will still have to wrestle over differences in each chamber’s version.
House leaders are also planning to trim money from individual earmarks but will stop well short of eliminating projects entirely, as Obey proposed.
The good news for Democrats is that their concession on overall spending brings them significantly closer to enacting into law a range of spending priorities.
Pelosi highlighted several areas that would benefit from the passage of Democratic-crafted spending bills, including children’s health and the National Institutes of Health.
She said it is “immoral” that researchers are missing many opportunities to advance health science because of insufficient federal funding, noting that 1,500 Americans die every day because of cancer.
Another significant difficulty emerging for Democrats is a disagreement over war funding. Pelosi made clear that a House-passed omnibus would not include any more funding for the war in Iraq, although it may include funds for military operations in Afghanistan.
One senior House appropriator said that plan means it will be left to the Senate to decide how to package war funds in the omnibus. As lawmakers scramble to recess before Christmas, there will be pressure to add war funds without restrictions on Bush’s ability to conduct the war. The president has vowed to veto any effort to withdraw troops from Iraq or impose other constraints.
House Democrats may face the difficult proposition of considering a spending package that includes unfettered war monies. Pelosi said she would vote against such a bill but did not say she would prevent it from coming to the floor, revealing a large measure of pragmatism as the first session of the 110th Congress reaches its final days.
In the final analysis, Democrats realized they would not be able to muster enough Republican votes to override Bush’s veto. The president vowed to reject any spending package that exceeded the $933 billion limit he set.
Democrats made a final attempt to drive a wedge between congressional Republicans and Bush by threatening to kill all lawmakers’ earmarks to bring the cost of the omnibus to the level Bush demanded. Obey hoped rank-and-file Republicans would pressure their leaders to accept a Democratic-proposed compromise that exceeded the White House budget by $11 billion, said a Democratic aide.
But that plan fizzled in the face of stiff Democratic opposition.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who served as the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development subcommittee before becoming Senate Democratic leader, may have posed the biggest hurdle.
At a Tuesday press conference, Reid declined to endorse the proposal to cut all earmarks and defended his right to steer funds to his home state.
Pelosi also faced strong opposition from the Democratic chairmen of the House Appropriations subcommittees, who in some cases had been waiting through 12 years of Republican control to finally wield a gavel on spending decisions.
Pelosi eased their concerns Wednesday morning by informing them that earmarks would not be cut and spending levels would be pared to the president’s levels to smooth the way for the omnibus to pass. Many government programs have had to subsist on a yearlong stopgap spending measure because Congress failed to pass a slew of spending bills in 2006. Many lawmakers want to avoid that from happening again.
Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, said he firmly opposed erasing the earmarks he had hammered out with colleagues. He said rank-and-file Democrats were tacitly promised earmarks for 2008 after they agreed to forgo them for 2007 by accepting the stopgap measure.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
On the other hand....I believe I’ll have another cup of eggnog.
Just think of the good that could have been done if that veto pen hadn’t been misplaced the first five or so years...
Yes, the idiot Bush wins again. How do dhims live with the horror that they get their asses kicked daily by a man who is too stupid to even tie his own shoes.
Funny how the President keeps winning these battles, even though the puppetmaster Karl Rove is long gone from the scene.
Baffling. Inexplicable...
Until s-CHIP ends up in the final version that goes to the President’s desk. Then who spins the outcome as a ‘Win’?
Just think how good it could of been if the Hysteric Whining Freepers actually supported the GOP when they do the right thing instead of manufacturing excuses to whine at them every day.
I think I heard them on the say he just vetoed it again
It just gotta suck for Democrats to be beaten so readily by a “Chimp” and his “puppets”, eh?
All the minimilization verbage in the world cannot cover this one simple fact about Democrats and thier agenda:
“FAILURE.....”
Baffling. Inexplicable...
Must be Cheney. And the Neocons.
The Omnibus budget is a mixed blessing, at best. It preserves an ocean of earmarked funding and pork, and reorders such projects above productive uses of our money. It really is just business as usual, just a little less one-sided than the majority wanted it to be.
Exactly. Well said, sir.
Took Bush 5 years to find the veto pen, but he wasn’t really looking for it, the first few years. He was trying to buy Democrat goodwill with Medicare expansion and such for far too long. Slow learner, President Bush.
First, they have to actually do the right thing. Until recently, Bush's budget veto pen was hidden in one of those crates from the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse, or something.
Sounds like the honeymoon twixt Murtha and Nancy is over. Kind of funny that she threatened to take away his pork gravy!
President Bush wears shoes?!!!!
No - he’s too dumb to tie ‘em, so he wears cowboy boots...
It'll be interesting to see how long it will take some reporter to ask a question of Murtha about this and he goes off on a demented rant about it. lol
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