|
 Bush's veto of a children's health insurance bill is garnering headlines now, but a showdown in upcoming weeks over other spending priorities could have a much bigger impact on the government's bottom line
- and on the lives of millions nationwide.Many Republicans see the upcoming battle
- over 12 annual spending bills totaling almost $960 billion - as a way for the GOP to redeem its reputation as the party of smaller government and fiscal discipline. Bush never vetoed an appropriations bill when Republicans controlled Congress, but he's itching to do so now.
Democrats are pressing to spend more than $22 billion more on domestic programs than Bush suggested last February.
"Only in Washington can $22 billion be called a very small difference," Bush said recently.
Health research, education, homeland security and community health centers are among the scores of programs that get boosts under the Democrats' spending bills for the 2008 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.
But they point out that $16 billion of the difference comes from their rejection of Bush's proposed cuts in programs that provide job training, low-income housing and grants to community groups that help the poor, as well as grants to state and local governments.
"The Community Services Block Grant is the real guts and glue that holds our agencies together," said Don Mathis, president of the Community Action Partnership, which represents more than 1,000 community action agencies serving about 15 million poor people. "The people being served are the poorest of the poor in America."
Eliminating those block grants and saving the $630 million budgeted for them has been proposed by Bush before and rejected. Also rejected in the past were his efforts to kill the $107 million program that sends packages of food to the elderly poor.
Moderate Republicans and many GOP members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees support the Democrats' spending increases. However, conservative Republicans easily outnumber moderates in the House, and they've demonstrated they can provide the votes to sustain Bush's promised vetoes.
"The president has made clear to the House and Senate leadership what he would and would not sign," said Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "He's told them,
'I'll work with you on the slices of the pie, but the size of the pie isn't going to change.'"
In fact, Bush has backed away from his threat to veto a bill containing almost $4 billion above his request for politically sacrosanct veterans' programs. And Capitol Hill Republicans are pushing to break the budget by $3 billion more to build fencing and provide other security measures along the southern border to keep out illegal immigrants from Mexico.
Democrats' spending increases grow to about $32 billion once transfers from the defense and foreign aid budgets are factored in, along with money approved by the Senate for border security and NASA.
[to top of second column] |
 To Democrats, such a tangle cries out for negotiations. But the White House insists that Democrats first present Bush bills to sign or veto.
"Working it through that process is almost a prerequisite in order to have any kind of successful negotiation," said White House Budget Director Jim Nussle.
Bush has signaled he'll sign Democratic-written spending bills, including one with the Mexican border fence that boosts the Pentagon's budget by $40 billion
- an almost 10 percent increase that doesn't include funds for the war in Iraq. Together with the bill that includes the $4 billion boost for veterans and billions more for military construction, those increases dwarf the money Democrats want to maintain or increase other domestic programs.
"If Bush were really concerned about fiscal responsibility, he would veto the bills he's planning to sign and sign the bills he's planning to veto," said Richard Kogan, an analyst with the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Other programs favored by Democrats in the ongoing budget battle include:
-Section 8 housing for the poor, funded about $1 billion over Bush's budget.
-National Institutes of Health research, awarded a $1 billion increase over last year.
-Homeland security grants to state and local governments, given an approximately $2 billion boost over Bush's request.
-Amtrak, awarded $600 million more than Bush sought.
Republicans say that the Democratic increases add up to more than $200 billion over five years, a blueprint that requires letting many of Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire in order to reach a balanced budget by 2012.
"If you went to his level, you'd have fewer health research grants," counters Rep. David Price, D-N.C. "We'd continue an atrophy in our housing programs. And in homeland security ... you would have continued deterioration of the support for first responders and you would have an inability to address the new threats of port security and rail and transit security."
[Associated Press;
By ANDREW TAYLOR]
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
|
