Cheney, OMB deputy seek to head off GOP revolt on spending

Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to meet at the White House this morning with House members in a last-ditch effort to keep New York members of the House Appropriations Committee from trying to add $11 billion to the fiscal 2002 terrorism supplemental, in defiance of President Bush's threat to veto what he considers excessive spending.

But Tuesday night, VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman James Walsh, R-N.Y., and Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., both said they intended to go ahead with the bipartisan amendment New Yorkers plan to offer at today's markup of the supplemental title of the fiscal 2002 Defense appropriations bill.

Their amendment also will include language to make funds available to Virginia and Pennsylvania--where planes hijacked by terrorists also crashed--in hopes of picking up votes from Republican committee members in those states.

Cheney is slated to meet with Walsh and the top New York Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, Rep. Nita Lowey. Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Sean O'Keefe is expected to attend--but not Director Mitch Daniels, who has a tense relationship with many appropriators, particularly after published comments he made last week.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., blamed the current spending impasse with the administration over the supplemental on Daniels, not Bush.

"The problem is not the President," Young said. "I think the problem is his budget director, who has him convinced that appropriators are the enemy of a balanced budget."

In fact, the normally easygoing Young told reporters he repeatedly had refused to take apology calls from Daniels Tuesday.

Referring to congressional appropriators, Daniels was quoted in last Friday's Wall Street Journal: "Their motto is 'Don't just stand there, spend something.' This is the only way they feel relevant."

Young met with Cheney for nearly 45 minutes Tuesday afternoon and briefed the vice president on the outlook for this afternoon's markup--where the committee will attach the supplemental title, which covers the $20 billion over which Congress has control, to the Defense spending bill.

Young advised Cheney to talk directly with the New Yorkers, who might have the votes to prevail in committee.

A spokesman for House Appropriations Democrats said: "I find it ironic that one day after another plane hits New York, the vice president is on the Hill to lobby against immediate money for New York. It's like coming up here and rubbing salt in the city's wounds."

Earlier Tuesday, OMB tried to appease the New York Republicans with a proposal that actually might have stiffened their resolve to defy the administration. OMB proposed that rather than provide the funds as a contingent emergency, Congress give the administration sweeping authority to transfer funds from either the $40 billion supplemental or any of the 13 fiscal 2002 appropriations acts, to pay for any emergency domestic security needs the president determines require funding, to be available "until expended."

The administration then would use the supplemental request it expects to make in the spring to replenish any transferred funds, according to a sheet of talking points on the proposal.

Young, Walsh and Sweeny all dismissed OMB's proposed language, which could be used for "defense or New York response and recovery efforts," thus giving the administration wide latitude to substitute its funding priorities for those of Congress, without guaranteeing that any of the transferred funds would go to any specific account.

Young said simply, "I don't think this is the better way to go."

Sweeney called OMB's language "so wide open and nebulous that it brings us no more a guarantee to New York and the affected areas than where we are now."

And Walsh said he considered the amendment to add the money on a contingent emergency basis as a compromise, while worrying that OMB's proposal "sort of delegates Congress' authority [over spending] to the president. I'm not prepared to do that."

On Tuesday night, Walsh could not say whether New Yorkers, who also hope to pick up support from Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey Republicans, have the votes.

"We're working this like the whip would," Walsh said.

But Appropriations member John Peterson, R-Pa., told CongressDaily Tuesday night: "I'm probably not likely to support [the amendment]. To just throw money to demonstrate your support is not a way to run a government."

In addition to the New York amendment, Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., plans to offer an amendment to add another $7.1 billion in contingent emergency funding for domestic security to the supplemental title. Obey, who has already scaled back the size of his proposal from nearly $20 billion, argued that providing the extra money as a contingent emergency answers the administration's concern about congressional overspending.

"None of this money can be spent unless George Bush concurs it is an emergency," Obey said.

Obey's package, which initially approached $20 billion, includes an additional $1.6 billion for bioterrorism, $500 million for postal security, $578 million for airport and airline safety, $818 million to beef up federal law enforcement, $1 billion to secure chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, $318 million for immigration and border security, $513 million for port security, $200 million for train and bus security, $414 million for food and water safety, $876 million to secure government facilities, $100 million security for school and colleges and $170 million for other security measures, such as grants for first responders and foreign language training.

"None of this philosophical. None of this is partisan," Obey said of his amendment, which he had hoped to offer on a bipartisan basis with Young.

Although Young had been sympathetic to an increase in the supplemental, Bush has issued a veto threat against more spending. GOP leaders also have insisted that the supplemental not exceed $20 billion, and Young has complied.

Obey pressed the case for Congress to provide the additional funds now, rather than wait for the White House to request another supplemental in the spring. He said Congress should get the money in the pipeline immediately and turn to other, equally pressing matters.

"Sooner or later we need to get on with other issues," said Obey, rather than take the first four months of next year "to rechew the same cud we've been chewing on since September."

In addition, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member John Murtha, D-Pa., intends to offer his own amendment to pump roughly $5-6 billion in contingent emergency funding for the Pentagon into the supplemental.

If the House added contingent emergency funds to the supplemental, Senate Appropriations ranking member Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was confident that opponents would have the necessary 41 votes in the Senate to enforce a budget point of order against the extra emergency spending.

But Stevens also said, "If the House opened the door to the process, we would have to consider it in committee."

Stevens has said he believes that the most pressing needs can be addressed in the $20 billion supplemental Congress is working on and the second $10 billion the administration controls, which is subject to a 15-day review by Congress. Stevens is particularly eager to ensure funds for the Air Force to lease refueling tankers, as well as for postal security, bioterrorism and food safety.