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CONGRESS RETURNS FROM ITS
AUGUST RECESS
Outlook for Remainder of 2007
Congress returned from its month-long August
recess on September 4, 2007, to begin the
process of moving an ambitious and jam packed
legislative agenda forward while knowing that it
will have to confront a President who has
promised to veto many of the proposals that
Democrats support. In addition to the twelve
must pass FY2008 appropriations bills, Democrats
have also promised to renew numerous pieces of
legislation expiring in 2007, including the
State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the
Prescription Drug User Fee Act, the Farm Bill
and the No Child Left Behind legislation. It’s a
lot to do in the context of a legislative
calendar that is dwindling. In fact, Democratic
leaders have already acknowledged that they will
have to remain in town until at least
Thanksgiving and most likely into December.
During the past two weeks, the Senate passed
three FY2008 appropriations bills, including the
Military Construction and Veterans Affairs
Appropriations Bill, the State and Foreign
Operations Appropriations Bill and the
Transportation and Housing and Urban Development
Appropriations Bill. You may remember that prior
to the August recess the Senate had passed the
Homeland Security Appropriations Bill.
Therefore, while the House succeeded in passing
all twelve of its FY2008 appropriations bills,
the Senate still must pass eight more before
House – Senate conference negotiations can even
begin on two-thirds of the FY2008 appropriations
bills. And with the beginning of fiscal year
2008 right around the corner (October 1, 2007),
it’s clear that several stopgap spending bills
(continuing resolutions) will be required.
Therefore, with just three short weeks until the
beginning of FY2008, Democratic leaders are
spending a good chunk of their time trying to
determine a strategy for confronting a President
intent on vetoing many of their appropriations
bills. One Democratic strategy that is being
discussed involves prohibiting House and Senate
negotiators from conferencing any of the bills
that have passed each chamber until they have a
better sense of the appropriations end game.
Democrats are wary of sending bills to President
Bush that include additional spending (such as
the Veterans Affairs Appropriations Bill) if it
means that they will be forced to reduce other
programs to pay for the increased funding for
veterans. Specifically, the President has said
that he will sign the Veterans Affairs
Appropriations Bill even though it includes $4
billion more than he requested. The concern is
that the President will try to force Democrats
to reduce the other appropriations bills by the
equivalent amount to offset the additional
spending for veterans.
Democratic leaders are also trying to determine
which strategy maximizes their leverage against
the President, specifically weighing whether
it’s better to send individual spending bills to
the President or combining appropriations bills
into an omnibus or various ‘minibuses.” Some
believe that having a vote on an individual bill
packed with popular programs, such as those
included in the Labor-HHS-Education
Appropriations Bill, will allow Democrats to
better make their case as opposed to a giant
omnibus where the spending priorities can be
harder to define.
Regardless of what strategy the Democrats use to
negotiate with the President, it appears that
they aren’t interested in a government shutdown.
Therefore, Democrats plan to send the President
a continuing budget resolution that would keep
the government open at a spending level
negotiated with the White House.
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STATUS OF FY2008
APPROPRIATIONS BILLS:
The Key Players and Their Positions
President Bush and Jim Nussle, Director of
OMB:
The twelve appropriations bills that have moved
through the House and now await Senate action
(actually eight still await Senate action)
include $22 billion more for non-defense
domestic discretionary programs than the
President requested in his own budget. As a
result, the President has issued veto threats on
eight of the dozen appropriations bills passed
by the House. The four spending bills that have
escaped White House veto threats include those
that fund the Defense and Treasury departments,
the Veteran’s Administration and the legislative
branch.
The President appears to be gunning for a
showdown fight to refurbish the Republican
Party’s fiscal credentials. By drawing a line in
the sand and warning Congress not to send him
bills that exceed his overall budget request for
non-defense domestic discretionary programs, the
President believes that his confrontational
stance on spending may excite and motive the
Republican conservative base, which up until now
has been mainly frustrated with the President’s
support for an expensive education reform
measure, a government-covered prescription drug
coverage bill, and six years worth of signed
appropriations bills. Many believe that with his
poll numbers so low, the President has nothing
to lose by challenging the Democratic Congress
on spending issues, plus it actually might
change the subject from Iraq. In addition, it
might give the President some bragging rights
that he’d used his veto threats to tamp down
runaway government spending.
On Tuesday, September 5, 2007, the Senate
confirmed former House Budget Committee Chairman
Jim Nussle (R-IA), by a vote of 69-24, to be the
next Director of the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), the executive agency that
negotiates the appropriations bills on behalf of
the President. Representative Nussle, known as a
hard nosed partisan and fiscal conservative who
earned the nickname “knuckles” for his
confrontational style in the House, will lead
the charge in the budget showdown with Congress.
Democratic Majority:
Democrats have been frustrated that many of
their priorities were neglected throughout the
past twelve years of Republican rule in
Congress. Therefore, when taking over the
majority, Democrats planned to provide spending
hikes for their priority programs in time for
the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2008. In
fact, Democrats spent much of the past spring
and summer strategizing and laying the
groundwork to ensure support for their key
programs. Democrats succeeded by providing a
united front on the FY2008 Budget Resolution, as
well as the ensuing decisions to allocate
sufficient resources to the appropriations
committees that fund many of the priority
programs. Certainly, it would be a setback for
Democrats if they are unable to boost spending
in areas their constituents believe have been
long neglected by President Bush.
Republican Minority:
Republicans in Congress increasingly believe
that Democrats have thwarted their attempts to
influence the appropriations process, and as a
result, appear united in supporting the
President’s plans to veto the appropriations
bills that provide for more spending than Mr.
Bush asked for in his budget. During his first
press conference upon his return from the August
recess, Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell
(R-KY), said that Democrats have complete
control to appropriate to the programs it deems
most worthy, provided that they don’t exceed the
President’s top-line figure for non-defense,
domestic discretionary programs. Senator
McConnell also mentioned that Democrats possess
the flexibility to fund its priority programs by
reducing programs it believes are less
important. Therefore, it sure appears that
Republicans are spoiling for a fight with
Democrats this fall on spending as a way to
regain their reputation for fiscal conservatism.
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FLOOR ACTION
VA: Senate Passes Military Construction,
Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies
Appropriations Bill
On September 6, 2007, the Senate passed the
FY2008 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs,
and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill (S.
1645) by a vote of 92-1. The bill would provide
the VA Medical and Prosthetics Research Program
with an appropriation of $500 million for
FY2008. This is $86 million more than its FY2007
funding level ($414 million) and $89 million
more than the President proposed ($411 million).
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