Senator appeals to White House for help moving spending bills

The Senate remained stalled Thursday on moving the remaining spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, with appropriators and GOP conservatives still at loggerheads.

The White House sent Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman to Capitol Hill, where he has been making the rounds in preparation for next year's budget talks. But with the fiscal 2007 process still far from over, Portman paid a visit to Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., where he expressed solidarity with the chairman's desire to get the bills finished.

"We think during the lame duck getting the appropriations bills done is the best thing for the country and we think it's the best thing for fiscal discipline, and we're supporting the chairman," Portman told reporters.

But Cochran said more than good intentions were required to break the logjam, with GOP conservatives blocking passage of any of the 10 remaining bills on the Senate floor. They would prefer a long-term CR at lower funding levels and free of earmarks.

"I said he ought to tell the president to call them and urge them to let these bills pass," Cochran said, even if it meant contacting President Bush on his current swing through Asia. "It's not me who's blocking these bills."

The Senate Thursday evening passed the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation measure. When the Senate returns in December it will turn to debate on the $98.3 fiscal 2007 Agriculture spending bill.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., promised Budget ranking member Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Tuesday that the bill would come up Wednesday in exchange for Conrad holding off on trying to attach a $4.5 billion disaster aid package to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs spending bill. But now it appears Conrad will not even get a vote until the Senate reconvenes the week of Dec. 4.

The disaster bill would compensate farmers and ranchers for crops and livestock lost over the past two years due to unforeseen natural calamities. Portman reiterated the White House's threat to veto the measure if it is not offset, but it enjoys broad support -- 77 senators backed a similar measure this spring, enough to override a veto.

But conservatives were blocking final passage of the Agriculture spending bill and others. Even the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs measure, which passed without a roll call vote Tuesday, remained in limbo as conservatives were blocking appointment of conferees on that bill.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a leader of the conservative opposition, said it was unlikely any more appropriations would pass in the 109th Congress, at least if he and his allies get their way.

"I think we need to examine the bills in the light of the last election, in which I think the American people were unhappy with our spending habits," Sessions said. "To me it makes more sense to just do a CR. We'd save the taxpayers a lot of money if we just did a CR for a whole year."

The Senate Budget Committee estimates that would shave about $7 billion from domestic spending slated for fiscal 2007 under the appropriations bills. Portman said he did not know if there would be majority support for such austerity, even in the last weeks of GOP control.

Sessions and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., each would benefit from earmarks in this year's spending bills, despite their stated opposition. In the Agriculture bill, Sessions procured $1.76 million for flood prevention in Atmore, Ala., while DeMint got $554,000 for two projects at Clemson University to study pest control and "Peach Tree Short Life syndrome."

DeMint defended his change of heart as a result of voters' dissatisfaction with such projects. "We want to change the system and the culture so members are no longer forced to bow to appropriators to get fair treatment for their states," he said.