WAKE UP AMERICA!
Posted on 07/01/2010 9:23:13 PM PDT by jazusamo
A Senate-passed war funding bill cleared the House Thursday night but only after Democrats added nearly $23 billion in new domestic spending that will require time-consuming negotiations with the Senate before the measure can go to the White House.
President Barack Obama escaped without any serious restrictions on his Afghan policy and the Pentagon’s $33 billion request for military operations was upheld on a lopsided 376-25 vote. But a succession of anti-war amendments—pressing Obama to clarify his plans for withdrawal—testified to a growing split between the president and rank-and-file Democrats over the cost of the war at a time of economic trouble at home.
“Our country is on her knees in terms of needs,” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D—Cal.) told POLITICO. “This is money, this is cash, going for what?”
“I do not want to spend money to try to rebuild a 12th century economy when ours is crumbling,” said House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D—N.Y.) “And if we’re going to rebuild an economy it should be the United States.”
Education, border security, and summer jobs funding account for the bulk of the new domestic spending, which includes $10 billion to help local school boards avert the threat of teacher layoffs this coming fall. To minimize the deficit impact, an equal sum of appropriations cuts and new legislative savings are incorporated, but the end product is a bill still approaching $82 billion—less than half of which is directly related to Afghanistan or its neighbor Pakistan.
Republicans complained bitterly about the tactics used, but the bigger budget loser may be the White House itself.
The administration had quietly hoped that whole House Democratic effort would collapse, forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) to call up and send to the president a clean version of the Senate bill before going home for the holiday. Instead what the White House got was an almost Independence Day shot-across-the-bow from rank-and-file Democrats, frustrated by the president’s failure to do more to help them move new jobs creation legislation going this spring and summer.
The White House waited until late Thursday before weighing in with an endorsement of much of the added spending, but also raising two veto threats if Democrats went too far.
The first warning was against any attempt to seriously impact the president’s authority as commander-in-chief to conduct war policy—not a serious fear at this stage. But the second veto topic was more direct and immediate and goes to the question of how Democrats propose to “pay-for” the added spending now in the bill.
At issue is $800 million that the House would rescind from prior Education Department appropriations to help finance the teachers’ aid. House Appropriations Committee Dave Obey (D-Wis.) took much of the money from charter school grants and the new “Race to the Top” reform program—both big priorities for the president and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan. And Obey’s own allies on the issue argue that the cut would be destructive and some adjustment will now be needed in negotiations with the Senate and White House.
“It would be short-sighted to weaken funding for these reforms just as they begin to show such promise,” the administration said in its policy statement.
The late-breaking veto threat rattled some Democrats, but the leadership stabilized itself after what proved to be the closest and most pivotal vote: adoption of the rule or procedural motion dictating the terms of the House debate and putting in place the first $6 billion of the added domestic funds. Democrats prevailed 215-210 but lost 38 of their members and needed the full force of the leadership team down to the final minute of the vote.
Blue Dog fiscal moderates won budget language that promises future savings by cutting an estimated $7 billion from Obama’s 2011 budget requests. At the same time, the Congressional Black Caucus won new spending for summer jobs and highway construction as well as a long-delayed payment on the settlement of black farmer claims against the Agriculture Department.
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