- Sat. Jul. 5, 2008
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Petraeus Returns to Capitol Hill
Army Gen. David Petraeus told lawmakers at a series of House and Senate hearings this week that approximately 140,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq through this fall in the hopes of stabilizing the country. He said he didn’t expect to need to increase troops again, as President Bush ordered with his “surge” last year, but the general also warned that he could not predict further withdrawals after forces are reduced to 15 brigades in July. The hearings included all three senators in the presidential race. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., contended that Petraeus’s course is the right one, while Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., argued for more troop withdrawals. Petraeus, along with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, endured hours of testimony before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees on April 8, and the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees on April 9. The hearings showed that the two parties remain split on the war, as they were when Petraeus and Crocker last testified in September. “An open-ended pause, starting in July, would be just the next page in a war plan with no exit strategy,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., contended. McCain countered: “Success—the establishment of a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state that poses no threats to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists—this success is within reach.” Lawmakers from both parties argued, however, that the Iraqi government should take on more of the financial burden for rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and boosting its security. --Brian Friel/National Journal
Senate Approves Housing Aid
The Senate voted 84-12 on April 10 to pass a housing-stimulus package that would provide $4 billion so cities can purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed properties, and approximately $13 billion in tax breaks to spur additional home-buying and to help homebuilders. The legislation represents a compromise between Democrats who advocated robust measures to address a dire housing market plagued by rising foreclosure rates, a large inventory of unsold homes, and a tight mortgage market, and Republicans who feared a large government bailout. “We don’t do as much as I would have liked to see us do,” Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said of the bill. The package also would overhaul the Federal Housing Administration’s mortgage insurance program by permanently increasing its loan limit to $550,000 and slightly bumping up its down payment requirement to 3.5 percent. Although the White House has expressed opposition to some bill provisions, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said President Bush has told him he did not threaten a veto. In the House, leaders are assembling a more expansive measure, including an $11 billion tax package tailored more toward buyers and developers of low-income housing. The centerpiece would give first-time homebuyers a tax credit equal to 10 percent of the price of a home up to $7,500. The credit would be available for one year and would have to be paid back over 15 years, without interest. --Bill Swindell/CongressDaily
House Puts Off Trade Pact Vote
The House voted 224-195 on April 10 to indefinitely delay an up-or-down vote on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement after President Bush sent the pact’s implementing legislation to Congress two days earlier. The procedural maneuver to remove the 90-day timetable for consideration of a trade pact under the terms of fast-track trade-negotiating authority infuriated the White House and House GOP leaders. Democrats are under pressure from U.S. labor unions over the deal because of Colombia’s record of violence against labor leaders there. In addition, Democrats want to see progress on a trade-adjustment assistance package. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that Bush’s decision to send the agreement to Congress signaled his unwillingness to continue conversations, and she added that the deal would fail if brought to the floor now. “The president took his action. I will take mine,” Pelosi said on April 9. Supporters of the trade pact contended that it was derailed. “This is a vote against Colombia, plain and simple,” said House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee ranking member Wally Herger, R-Calif. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab complained, “I can’t believe they would change the rules in the middle of the game.” Pelosi said after an April 9 White House meeting that Democrats would still be willing to consider the trade agreement this year if the White House embraces measures to aid the U.S. economy first. “It absolutely leaves open the question of a vote this year,” said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., a Ways and Means member, who added that the House vote “strengthens [Pelosi’s] hand in bargaining with the White House.” --Peter Cohn/CongressDaily
Spending Battle Heating Up
House and Senate leaders began ramping up for a battle over domestic spending as behind-the-scenes negotiations over the fiscal 2009 budget resolution continued this week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on April 8 that a pending $102 billion Iraq war supplemental spending bill should be accompanied with domestic spending “for summer jobs programs, extending unemployment benefits, some things that would be stimulative to the economy.” But Republican leaders warned that they would resist domestic add-ons. “It is the unified view of those of us standing here that that [supplemental] should be for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, not used as a vehicle to carry domestic spending items,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on April 9 alongside other GOP leaders after President Bush met with both parties’ congressional chiefs at the White House. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said after the meeting that Democrats would demand spending to boost the economy. That issue also remains a sticking point in talks over the budget resolution. House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., continued to seek a compromise that would satisfy House lawmakers who want additional economic stimulus programs to be paid for with cuts elsewhere in the budget, as well as Senate lawmakers who support allowing $35 billion of stimulus programs without concurrent offsets. --Brian Friel/National Journal
Farm Bill Conference Begins
As House-Senate conferees began meeting on a new farm bill on April 10, they were deeply divided over how much to increase its spending, how to pay for the increase, and whether to include a farm disaster program and tax breaks passed by the Senate. If Congress simply extended the 2002 farm bill, it would cost $597 billion over 10 years, including food stamps and other nutrition programs, which account for 66 percent. Before the formal conference began, House and Senate farm leaders planned to boost spending by $10 billion over 10 years, and to shift another $9 billion within the bill to fund increases for certain programs. But the White House has said that tax increases cannot be used to pay for the additional spending. House negotiators agreed to start the conference by presenting their Senate counterparts with a proposal to cut the farm bill increase from $10 billion to $6 billion and to leave out Senate provisions calling for a $4.1 billion farm disaster aid package and 60-plus tax breaks that would cost $2.5 billion. Key senators were expected to object vigorously to the House plan. The current extension of the 2002 farm bill expires April 18, and President Bush has said that Congress should finish a new bill by then or send him a one-year or longer extension. Another short-term extension is possible if negotiators are close to a deal next week. --Jerry Hagstrom/CongressDaily
Hoyer Trying to Broker FISA Deal
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., has become an ambassador conducting shuttle diplomacy between the two chambers in an effort to break an impasse over legislation rewriting the nation’s surveillance laws. Hoyer met on April 8 with House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., to determine if they are willing to compromise on legislation overhauling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Separately, Hoyer met with Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., ranking member of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, in an effort to jump-start negotiations. Hoyer is viewed as the linchpin in brokering a House-Senate compromise, especially on the issue of whether telecommunications companies should be given retroactive legal immunity for helping the Bush administration conduct electronic surveillance on U.S. residents without warrants. But Hoyer finds himself in an untenable position. Reyes and Conyers told Hoyer he needs to bring Senate Republicans and the White House to the negotiating table before they will discuss options. On the other hand, Bond is expecting Hoyer to deliver a proposal to the Senate describing legislative provisions that House Democratic leaders believe must be in a final FISA bill. Aides could not predict how long the impasse would continue. --Chris Strohm/CongressDaily
Speier Elected to Succeed Lantos
Veteran California state lawmaker Jackie Speier easily won an April 8 special election to succeed Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who died in February. Speier took 78 percent of the vote against four inexperienced and lightly funded opponents in the open primary, thus avoiding a runoff in the heavily Democratic Bay Area district. Speier is a part of congressional history, having been seriously wounded when she was a staffer during a 1978 fact-finding mission to investigate cult leader Jim Jones in Guyana; her boss, then-Rep. Leo Ryan, D-Calif., was murdered on that trip, and she now serves in his seat. She is the 21st woman in the California Democratic delegation, including the state’s two senators. The result leaves the House with 234 Democrats and 198 Republicans. Three special elections are scheduled in the upcoming weeks for open seats in Louisiana and Mississippi, all of which had been held by Republicans. --Richard E. Cohen/National Journal