Game plans for spending bills become clearer

This fall's endgame strategy became a little clearer Tuesday as senior Democrats confirmed they would not consider President Bush's $193 billion-plus emergency request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until next year.

Instead they plan to use the pre-Thanksgiving period to send Bush domestic spending bills boosting health research, education, worker training, law enforcement, transportation infrastructure and low-income housing.

Democrats say increases in those programs, taken with other areas of the budget, are a fraction of Bush's war funding request.

Republicans blasted the emerging strategy, in which they said Democrats were delaying war funding and holding back a bipartisan veterans' health measure to secure leverage for their domestic priorities.

"Why is it that Democratic leaders continue to put politics first before the interests of our troops and veterans?" said a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Additional interim funding for troops would be provided as part of the $459.6 billion fiscal 2008 Defense appropriations bill to last until as late as March, Democrats said.

"That's not gonna happen," said House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., when asked if there was a concern about running out of funds for the troops.

The domestic bills are likely to be vetoed, much like the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill, the other centerpiece of the Democrats' domestic agenda.

Democrats are calculating that they can win the "guns vs. butter" debate, while forcing negotiations on a catchall package that could serve as the engine to end the session.

Meanwhile, Democratic campaign officials would be armed with an array of votes on which to target vulnerable Republicans up for re-election next year.

Under their developing plan, Democrats would first send Bush the roughly $150 billion Labor-Health and Human Services spending bill. Bush is proposing to cut $3.6 billion from programs covered in the bill from fiscal 2007; Democrats want to add $7 billion to $9 billion more than fiscal 2007.

Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said staff aides were "pre-conferencing" the bill in anticipation of floor passage as early as the week of Oct. 15.

He said he would prefer to have an override vote once Bush vetoes the bill. But as a fallback, Harkin said Democrats are considering a tactic reminiscent of the 2002 GOP intraparty battle over social spending: introducing Bush's Labor-HHS proposals, as did then-House Appropriations Chairman C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., to demonstrate that Bush's budget could not pass the House or Senate.

"He doesn't want ours; we don't want his. We'll see how much support there is," Harkin said.

Close on the heels of the Labor-HHS measure will be a roughly $54 billion Commerce-Justice-Science measure, sources said.

The Senate could pass the bill this week and send it to Bush by the end of the month, bolstered by additional funds to hire and train local police and $1 billion in emergency funds for NASA to repay the costs of returning the space shuttle to flight.

Meanwhile, a proposal announced Tuesday by Murtha, Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., and Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., to impose a "war surtax" on individual incomes to raise roughly $150 billion annually for the Iraq war proved an unwelcome distraction.

"It's not exactly on message," said a senior Democratic aide, considering Democrats hoped to make SCHIP the focus of attention Tuesday. "It took a lot of people by surprise."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., quickly rushed out a release opposing the plan.

Republicans had a field day. "If the new majority has proven one thing this session, it's that no piece of legislation is immune from being converted into a vehicle to raise taxes," said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

Obey said he never expected his leadership or the Democratic Caucus to endorse the idea, but added he wanted to make a point about shared sacrifice.