Dems See No Rush for War Funding

ABC News’ Z. Bryon Wolf reports: Responding to President Bush’s call Monday for Congress to send him nearly $200 billion in war funding by the end of this year for Iraq and Afghanistan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Congress would not be rushed.

He implied that the Pentagon could make do with the $450 billion in regular, non-war-related funding Congress is set to send President Bush in the meantime.

President Bush said Monday the additional funding is urgently needed by troops waging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We must provide our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done," Bush said. "Parts of this war are complicated, but one part is not, and that is America should do what it takes to support our troops and protect our people."

But Reid said the Pentagon could use money already appropriated to the Department of Defense to fund the war while Congress studies the President’s proposal.

"We are not going to rush," Reid said. "We’ll send the DOD appropriations bill $450 billion should tide them over a bit."

"The one thing the President doesn’t seem to be worried about is the credit card," said Reid, who argued that while all the war funding is essentially borrowed money, the President vetoed the SCHIP bill, which was funded by a what Reid called a "little" tax on cigars and cigarettes. Opponents of the bill say the tobacco tax targets the poor.

Appropriators in the House and Senate have indicated that Congress might not vote on the war funding request from the White House until after the new year. And Democrats want to try to attach strings to the funding to move toward a redeployment of US troops out of Iraq, as Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd has said.

How those strings will manifest themselves is TBD, but Democrats will have hearings in Congress to vet the President’s request — adding today’s call for $46 billion — a total of 196.4 billion in war funding this year.

In a paper statement today, Byrd said, "Every line-item will be scrutinized. Hearings will be held to determine the need for this spending request. Tough questions will be asked of this Administration. There will be no blank checks.”

Reid was appearing today at a press conference on Capitol Hill with Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and two citizens, a Head Start teacher from New Jersey and a cancer survivor from Georgia. The stated purpose of the event was to lobby the President’s signature for a different spending bill — the Labor-HHS bill, which the President has threatened to veto.

Senators will vote Tuesday on the Senate version of the Labor-HHS appropriations bill, which funds Head Start, the NIH and a host of other programs. The President has said he will veto the Labor-HHS bill because it goes beyond his budget proposal by $11 billion.

Democrats are likely to send the President the Labor-HHS funding bill as the first spending bill they’ll offer to President Bush for his signature because, as Reid said today, "it deals without priorities."

President Bush has not received any of the appropriations bills from Congress yet even though the fiscal year they are supposed to fund began at the beginning of the months. Congress passed a stopgap funding measure in the interim. That funding runs out November 16th.

In nearly a trillion dollars of government funding for the 2008 fiscal year, Democrats are set to approve over $20 billion more than the President has said he will allow. Reid complained today that President Bush is threatening to veto the spending bills this year, but last year, when Republicans ran Congress, they approved much more — $55 billion, said Reid — over what the President suggested and yet he did not veto any spending bills.

The question on war funding was asked of Reid by NPR’s David Welna. Reid interrupted Welna to say, "Public radio. You know I gave money. I told my wife I felt guilty, so even though the pledge drive was over, I called in." Then, sure to fuel conservative talk radio, Reid recited the pledge line number for the one of the local Washington, D.C. NPR affiliates, WAMU. "1-800-248-8850," Reid said.

After Welna chuckled but did not say anything about Reid’s pledge, the Senate Majority Leader said, "You could say thank you. That’s your salary."