Senate clears final spending measure for domestic agencies

The Senate approved Wednesday a $463.5 billion bill covering all domestic and foreign aid spending slated for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, setting the stage for future funding battles between President Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress.

The vote was 81-15. The bill now goes to the White House, where Bush is expected to sign the measure before the current continuing resolution expires at midnight.

The tradeoffs evident in constructing the fiscal 2007 budget measure are likely to give way to further tussles down the road. For example, Democrats cut Bush's requested funds for military base realignment by $3.1 billion, spreading the money among domestic programs. Even with the cut, the measure provided a $1 billion increase over fiscal 2006.

Thirteen of 15 Cabinet departments had been operating under a series of stopgap continuing resolutions since Republicans decided not to vote on most of the regular fiscal 2007 appropriations bills when they controlled Congress last year.

"Agencies have limped along through October, November, December, January and half of February," Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said. "This is a deplorable way to run a government."

Byrd said the bill provides needed funds to prevent long lines for veterans and active-duty military seeking health services; avoid furloughs at the Social Security Administration and shutdowns at Medicare call centers; enable highway construction to go forward; help HIV/AIDS victims worldwide and allow construction of housing for troops returning from Europe.

Republicans complained bitterly about Democratic tactics barring amendments, even in the traditionally free-wheeling Senate. "We are not the other body," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "We are the Senate, a deliberative body."

Republicans from impacted states tried in vain to add back the base-construction funds, offset by cuts in other programs. Texas will not receive the full $750 million slated for fiscal 2007 under the 2005 base closure and realignment round, for example. Much of that would have gone to Fort Bliss to house the Army's 1st Armored Division and other units returning from Germany and South Korea.

"We are not going to be able to do what's right for our military because $3.1 billion was taken out of this bill," said Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. "I don't think that this is the Senate's finest hour."

The money will be restored in the emergency war supplemental next month. This week a senior administration official said the White House has concerns with such "gamesmanship" that essentially adds $3.1 billion to the deficit, although Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week it was important to get the funding passed, regardless of the vehicle.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said the bill uses the same budget "gimmicks" that taxpayers tired of during the years of GOP rule. "We thought we bought a new car," Coburn said. "But what the American people bought was a car that was wrecked and repainted and sold as new."

The 137-page CR is unlike anything seen in the modern appropriations process. Since it contains a number of program increases and cuts in addition to the 450 accounts frozen at prior-year levels, it is not a CR in the traditional sense.

But it is a far cry from the 1,053-page "behemoth" that the late President Ronald Reagan ridiculed during his 1988 State of the Union address, more akin to an omnibus appropriations bill than the full-year CR it was billed as. And it is much shorter than the 1,839-page omnibus Republicans passed when they took back control of the Senate in 2003.

After consideration of the Iraq war supplemental the regular fiscal 2008 appropriations process will begin. Byrd and House Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., have vowed a return to "regular order" and timely consideration of individual bills.

That will not be easy under Bush's tight budget plan, and Democrats are almost certain to go above his overall $929.8 billion target, inviting potential veto fights with the White House.

While the Congressional Budget Office has yet to re-calculate Bush's fiscal 2008 budget request, according to preliminary figures it would increase the Pentagon's base budget by 11.4 percent, or $49.3 billion, over this year. Last year the White House issued a veto threat when Republicans floated the idea of cutting more than $4 billion from Pentagon accounts.

By contrast, overall domestic spending in Bush's fiscal 2008 budget -- defined as activities other than defense, homeland security and international aid -- would increase about 0.6 percent from levels in the fiscal 2007 continuing resolution. After factoring in proposed fiscal 2008 increases of 8.5 percent for veterans' programs and 6.5 percent for NASA, all other domestic spending would be cut.

Cuts in the budget would fall heaviest on job-training, worker safety and environmental programs -- all areas receiving increases under the CR. The Labor Department's budget would decline 6 percent under Bush's fiscal 2008 request, while Environmental Protection Agency funds are cut 6.6 percent.

The Education, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development departments would be cut a combined $3.6 billion from fiscal 2007, or about 2 percent. Overall, Democrats estimate as much as $13 billion is needed to restore proposed cuts in domestic programs to levels needed to keep pace with current services.