Need for next war spending bill might be delayed

Senior administration officials said Wednesday that the next supplemental war spending bill might not be needed until near the end of the year, a timetable that might take away a vehicle Democrats expected to use to debate the direction of the war in September.

Gen. David Petraeus, the Iraq war commander, owes Congress a progress report on the war in September. The last supplemental, passed in June, provided funding through Sept. 30 and offered Democrats a handy forum for highlighting objections to the war and for proposing alternative strategies.

But Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman, briefing reporters at the White House, said more money might not be needed until December -- or even later -- and urged Congress instead to finish appropriations bills.

"Sept. 30th is fiscal year end. We need to have these bills done, we need to have some resolution," he said.

Portman said the Defense Department is trying to determine how much money it needs and when. "We don't know when it will be necessary to have another supplemental," he said.

One senior administration said that while "Democrats are trying to accelerate the war supplemental, we're trying to make sure they get their regular business done on time."

The official said money from the supplemental will remain after Sept. 30 because the administration received the measure later than expected from Congress.

The legislation was stalled for weeks as Congress and the White House faced off over provisions President Bush saw as limiting his ability to conduct the war on his own terms.

Portman also said the administration is not open to including border enforcement money that is not offset in the next supplemental request.

"It's not something at this point that we think is appropriate," he said. "We think what's appropriate is to get the appropriation bill done, which has a big increase in border security funding."

He noted that a congressional proposal for providing more than $4 billion in new funds for border enforcement was to be paid for by fees collected under immigration legislation that died on the Senate floor last month.

"Well, there won't be any fees now, unless by some miracle we have a revival of the immigration bill in the House and Senate," he said.

Portman said that in the upcoming appropriations debate, the White House would stand firm in its insistence that Congress limit non-security related domestic discretionary spending to $933 billion, but he pledged to be flexible about spending amounts within individual bills.

While noting that the $22 billion separating administration and congressional spending proposals was "a lot of money," he suggested that the differences were surmountable.