White House issues warning on 'larded' spending bills

A top aide to President Bush issued a stark warning Monday to Senate appropriators, indicating that if they tack too much spending on the fiscal 2002 supplemental bill after it emerges from the House, the president will not hesitate to veto the legislation.

"If the bill gets loaded up with a lot of extra spending in the Senate, the president will examine it closely and make the determination whether the bill needs to be sent back for more work," said White House Legislative Affairs Director Nicholas Calio. "And if it gets loaded up, the odds are that he'll send it back."

Calio offered these remarks during a 40-minute interview with CongressDaily in his West Wing office, where he spoke about a number of issues now before Congress. Perhaps uppermost in Calio's mind was the rapidly closing window for passing legislation.

"Basically, I think what's on our mind is . . . you've got a bunch of unfinished business at a time when the appropriations process is bearing down on us and likely to take over the bulk of the schedule," he said. "We're approaching the Memorial Day recess and--not surprisingly--everything is taking longer to get done than everybody figured."

Calio said he hoped that Congress would make quick work of the presidential trade negotiation authority bill, pass welfare reform legislation this year and move on already negotiated compromises in the president's faith-based initiative.

And Congress should "get a good energy bill out of the conference," Calio said, indicating "ample room" for a compromise on Bush's plan to open up new sections of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. The ANWR provision is in the House bill but was excluded from the Senate-passed legislation.

Calio sought to spotlight a bioterrorism legislation conference he said had fallen below the radar.

However, considering the state of the economy, the White House would not seriously view a minimum-wage increase. "I think it will be taken as clearly a political move," Calio said.

Calio said terrorism insurance is "another issue that's dragging on," stuck on "the small issue" of punitive damages, which the White House does not believe should be applied to those who have incurred terrorist acts.

"If the trial lawyers could take their chokehold off the Democratic Party at least that much, the bill could move quickly through the Senate," Calio said.

But in the background of the remainder of the legislative session will be the question of whether Bush deviates from his vow to hold the line on spending. Calio acknowledged the difficulty of enforcing spending limits, but asserted Bush had not deviated from this path.

"One of the burdens we have to focus on for the rest of the year is trying to contain spending, which--without any enforcement mechanisms currently--is likely to prove a long, difficult and contentious process.

"But it's one to which the president is deeply committed," Calio continued. "Vetoing appropriations bills is never easy in the sense that the money doesn't stand out as a sore thumb--it's usually pretty well-marbled in and part of an overall" number.

Asked about whether Bush might veto a spending bill early in the appropriations process to set the tone for the debate, Calio said: "There's certainly been a discussion among a number of people--both internally and externally--that if something comes over and it's larded up, to send it right back. And in a sense, that would be a useful signal to be able to send."

And Bush has called for the fiscal 2003 Defense appropriations bill to go first, partly to clear it off the legislative poker table so Democrats cannot use it as a bargaining chip, Calio suggested.

"The Defense appropriations bill needs to be front-loaded in the process rather than back-loaded as leverage for something else," Calio said. "It is too important that it get done to let it wait all year."

But despite Bush's pledge to hold the line on spending, Monday he signed an expensive farm bill. And some Republicans reportedly have expressed frustration that the White House has not been aggressive enough in holding down the supplemental's price tag.

Without saying the administration would support the $29.4 billion supplemental being debated by the House appropriations panel, Calio defended the bill's $2 billion-some increase over the $27.1 billion Bush had proposed. He indicated that new spending would be paid for by offsets or made contingent - meaning it will be spent if the president decides it is needed.

Therefore the message to Senate appropriators--who will be next to consider the supplemental--is not that Bush is willing to add more money to the bill, but that he will "hold the line very closely" and "review very closely any additions to the request," Calio said.

"We think that what's going on with the sup in the House is that there's a dialogue going on that, at the end of the day, it's going to contain spending to the relative levels that the president requested," Calio said.

Asked about reports of grumbling among conservatives about recent Bush actions Calio would not say whether he was trying specifically to assuage conservative lawmakers. Nevertheless, he did seem aware of the unhappiness.

"It's very difficult with 535 members of Congress ... to keep everybody happy at all times," Calio said.

"If you go outside the Beltway, there is a tremendous satisfaction among conservatives with the president and what the president has done," Calio said. "And we're in a constant outreach to Republican members, and the president's record as a conservative speaks for itself."