House, Senate GOP may approve more than $3 billion for VA

House and Senate Republicans are moving toward a plan to include up to $1.5 billion in supplemental veterans healthcare funds in the fiscal 2006 Interior spending bill, while adding a second round of up to $1.7 billion for the agency in its regular fiscal 2006 funding measure.

The White House was expected to ask Congress in a budget amendment for another $2 billion to cover errors in anticipated VA healthcare costs, two weeks after asking for $975 million.

Senate Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, whose panel will mark up its fiscal 2006 bill next week, said the goal "is to push the conference on Interior to be finished by Wednesday of next week" and send the measure to the president's desk, then freeing up supplemental funds for this fiscal year.

But Wednesday is an ambitious goal, and that deadline could be pushed back closer to the end of the month. Hutchison said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., have signed off on the plan to move the first round of VA funds on the Interior bill and the rest on the fiscal 2006 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs measure, which her panel plans to mark up next week. The House has already passed its version, as well as a free-standing $975 million fiscal 2005 supplemental for veterans healthcare.

Hutchison said as a fallback the Senate could take up the House-passed bill; amend it to adjust the fiscal 2005 total upward, and send it back to the House to clear for the president's signature. But she added that bringing up a separate vehicle could "get bogged down" with amendments. "I think Democrats will be amenable" to including funds in the Interior conference report, she said, although they have not yet formally agreed to the idea.

The Senate amended the $26.2 billion fiscal 2006 Interior spending bill to add $1.5 billion in supplemental VA funding. Total fiscal 2005 funds the White House expects to request are about $1.3 billion, factoring in the $975 million OMB has already asked for plus another $300 million or so.

Hutchison said "it has yet to be determined" whether the Interior bill would remain at $1.5 billion for VA healthcare or be trimmed to $1.3 billion, although the higher total is likely to be acceptable to both House and Senate Republicans. The fiscal 2006 portion is expected to total up to $1.7 billion.

The VA healthcare maneuvering comes as the Senate prepares to debate a bipartisan effort to add a budget-busting $1.2 billion for mass transit security to a $30.8 billion fiscal 2006 Homeland Security measure, against the backdrop of OMB's new deficit estimates showing a $94 billion improvement from earlier projections for fiscal 2005, to $333 billion.

At a hearing Thursday morning to examine the new numbers, House Budget Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, cautioned against using the good news to justify embarking on a spending binge. "No one should get on the gravy train," Nussle said.

OMB Director Josh Bolten said Congress, particularly the House, has begun to get discretionary spending under control but said the "real fiscal threat" comes from mandatory spending on programs such as Social Security and Medicare.