Democratic Leaders Say Supplemental Deadline Might Slip

Thu. May 1, 2008


Democratic congressional leaders, faced with procedural disagreements and pressed by members who want to add more domestic spending, today backed away from their deadline of wrapping up the Iraq supplemental spending bill before the Memorial Day recess. "We will do our best to finish this before the Memorial Day break, but if not, it's no big deal," Senate Majority Leader Reid said, adding that "the money is there" to fund U.S. troops if the deadline is not met. House Speaker Pelosi said, "Our goal is to move as soon as we can."

The Pentagon pushed for the Memorial Day deadline and lawmakers seemed on schedule to meet it until Wednesday, when Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd said his panel would mark up the measure and ignore House plans to sidestep the committee process and deal with the legislation on the floor. The extra time to deal with the procedural hurdles will give rank-and-file lawmakers more chances to try to add more money to the emergency supplemental bill. "Everybody's still trying to get their stuff into this bill and [House Appropriations Chairman David] Obey is still trying to keep everyone's shit out of the bill," said one caucus source with knowledge of the situation. "He wants the cleanest bill possible." President Bush has threatened to veto a bill that funds nonmilitary programs or that ties his hands or limits U.S. commanders in Iraq.

House Democratic leadership sources said they doubted that Reid would be able to persuade Byrd to reverse his stance. Reid, who characterized Byrd's move as a way for appropriators "to protect themselves" and remain part of the process, said it was premature to say what would happen in the Senate. "It's easy to cancel a markup," he said. "Let's wait and see what happens. We do not have a supplemental appropriations agreement with the House as of yet. We are working on that. We don't know what is going to be in it. I don't know whether there is a need to have a markup over here with the Appropriations Committee."

Republicans continued to insist that the committees be involved. "Regular order is critical here," House Minority Leader Boehner said. "To shut down the democratic process here in the House, that makes no sense." The possibility of skipping the committee process also concerned some Democrats who say that with the Senate now expected to mark up the measure, bypassing the committee process in the House would play into Republican strategy. Boehner also said plans to add more spending for nonmilitary needs will slow the bill. He argued that many of the provisions being considered, such as expanded college aid for veterans, could move as stand along items with bipartisan support. "It is clear Democrats are going to play politics with this bill again," said Boehner. "It is a prescription for a problem."

by Christian Bourge and Humberto Sanchez

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