House, Senate leaders plot strategy for finishing spending bills

House and Senate GOP leaders were scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon to plan their exit strategy for Thanksgiving, which increasingly looks as if it will include completion of all regular fiscal 2006 spending bills, including Defense, as well as sending to conference deficit reduction and perhaps tax-cut reconciliation bills.

That strategy could mean a Saturday session to clear outstanding appropriations conference reports, while the House -- having not locked down the votes -- might consider the budget reconciliation bill, to be followed by the tax-cut bill.

"There's a real opportunity that we will finish all of our appropriations work this week" as well as the spending and tax-cut bills, said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., the acting majority leader.

Under pressure from the Pentagon and the House and Senate Appropriations committees, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was expected to decide as early as Wednesday to appoint conferees to the $453 billion Defense spending bill, which includes $50 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lawmakers still are wrestling with Senate language in the bill prohibiting abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. That provision also is attached to a separate defense authorization bill. The White House and House Republicans oppose that language, but they are feeling pressure to accept some anti-torture restrictions.

Another outstanding issue is across-the-board spending cuts, which Hastert is under pressure from conservatives to include in an appropriations bill. The Defense bill has been seen as the most likely candidate, but to spread the pain more evenly, House GOP leaders prefer no exemptions except for combat operations.

Republican senators have balked at cutting programs such as veterans' health care and homeland security, and Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska -- already upset at House leaders for stripping Arctic drilling provisions from their reconciliation bill -- is adamant that all Defense spending be exempt from across-the-board cuts. With House and Senate Republicans divided, the issue might be revisited in December.

If they do not use the Defense bill, GOP leaders would still have an available vehicle to move across-the-board cuts, as leaders appear to be considering wrapping together hurricane relief and avian flu preparedness packages, possibly with rescissions of unspent appropriations.

Meanwhile, negotiations are moving ahead on other bills, with appropriators expected to file a $142.5 billion Labor-HHS spending bill conference agreement despite widespread angst over a paucity of home-state earmarks. They had expected to file the Transportation-Treasury bill late Tuesday night, but it was delayed by last-minute objections to language on moving companies.

Appropriators also were working to resolve Senate concerns about funding for a housing project at an Air Force base in Germany and were aiming to file a $44.1 billion Military Construction-VA bill. The Senate Wednesday was expected to approve for the president's signature the Science-State-Justice spending bill, making it the seventh of 11 to clear both chambers.