Senate proposal seeks $165B for war

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - President Bush's GOP allies in the Senate face election-season votes Thursday on both his long-pending war funding request and tens of billions of dollars backed by Democrats for veterans education and an assortment of domestic programs.

A Wednesday night agreement gave Republicans a clear path to kill numerous domestic programs sought by Democrats and some Republicans in order to pass a "clean" war funding bill as demanded by the president. But to do so would take some politically difficult votes on proposals to extend unemployment benefits and greatly expand veterans' education benefits.

Under a remarkably complex process, the Senate is scheduled to vote on domestic issues first and then adopt $165 billion for Pentagon operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to fund those efforts until the new administration takes over next year. Sixty votes in the 100-member Senate are required at every juncture.

Republicans seemed likely to scuttle efforts to provide 13 more weeks of unemployment benefits as well as money for heating subsidies, fighting Western wildfires and aid to rural schools, and numerous other programs added by a key panel last week.

Such spending had been backed by senators in both parties but had drawn a veto promise from Bush. Republican leaders scrambled Thursday to line up support for the president.

Voting down the domestic initiatives would also kill $850 million for international food aid, $1.9 billion for military construction projects, and several billion dollars in various foreign aid programs — all requested by the administration.

Next would come a vote on the veterans GI Bill — authored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. — which is aimed at guaranteeing returning Iraq war veterans the equivalent of a four-year education at a public university. It would cost $52 billion over the next decade.

If Republicans could deny Webb's popular bill the required 60 votes, the chamber could send a "clean" war funding bill back to the House. Democrats expressed cautious confidence that they would win.

The White House has promised to veto the additional veterans education benefits, arguing that they would hurt efforts to re-enlist troops finishing their stints in the service.

The deal reached between Reid and his GOP counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is virtually certain to kill proposed Democratic restrictions on Bush's conduct of the Iraq war. It would send the war funding bill to the House in hopes it would soon reach Bush's desk.

On Iraq policy, Republicans are expected to block a Democratic plan to urge Bush to begin redeployment of combat troops and place other strings on his ability to conduct the war in Iraq. After that vote, the Senate would immediately vote — and pass — the war funding measure. If Democrats are successful, the war funding measure would likely move to the House in tandem with the education proposal.

The House would be unlikely to act until Congress returns from a one-week recess.

The war funding measure has had a remarkably chaotic journey through Congress. It's been delayed for weeks as Democrats tried to figure out ways to structure debate to allow themselves to vote against financing the war in Iraq but still ensure that it passes.

The unusual procedure in both House and Senate allowed separate votes on components of the measure to allow Democrats and a few Republicans to tack domestic programs onto Bush's war request, while Republicans would supply the votes to adopt the war funding.

Republicans say the process is unfair, and when the House debated the war funding measure last week, angry Republicans sat out the vote and combined with anti-war Democrats to kill the war funding. But the House easily passed the GI Bill improvements, an increase in unemployment benefits and restrictions on Bush's ability to conduct the war in Iraq.

In the Senate, members of the Appropriations Committee added more than $10 million in discretionary funding not requested by Bush, including funding for grants to state and local police departments, $1 billion for energy subsidies for the poor and more than $1 billion to help Mississippi recover from Hurricane Katrina.

Reid always held a dim view of the domestic extras, knowing they would guarantee a veto and reinforce perceptions that Senate is too profligate. Indeed, Appropriations Committee members treated the war funding bill like the last train leaving the station, and, as a result, added billions of dollars for pet programs.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080522/ap_on_go_co/congress_iraq_funding [link]