WASHINGTON - Democratic majorities in Congress and the administration have repeatedly clashed over tying troop withdrawal language to the bills that pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This time around, things are quieter.
Rep. Marion Berry, a Democrat from Arkansas who sits on the House Appropriations and Budget committees, said renewing the battle would be counterproductive. "Sometimes when you don't get the votes, you bring it back again and again," Berry said. "That doesn't seem like a really great thing to do."
Instead, Berry said, Congress should take a harder look at how the money is being spent.
Danielle Doane, director of congressional relations at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington advocacy group, contended that the situation in Iraq is improving and that Democrats have been put on the defensive.
"Putting in timelines is a political loser for them," Doane said. "They need a change in strategy."
For spending in the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1,Congress required that the administration include its warspending request in its annual budget proposal, rather than make a mid-year emergency request for money, as it had done in the past. President Bush asked for $141.8 billion.
On Sept. 26, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that would not be enough. He asked for an additional $43.6 billion in "emergency" supplemental funding. That way, both Congress and the Pentagon can avoid budget limits that apply to regular spending.
In testimony before the House Budget Committee Wednesday, Amy Belasco, a defense budget specialist at the Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service, warned that separating war spending from the regular budget can have the effect of blurring total costs and funding programs that have not received adequate scrutiny from Congress.
She noted that the Pentagon had "broadened the scope" of what constitutes a war-related activity.
"An emergency is supposed to mean it was unforeseen and unavoidable," said Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington advocacy group, and the former chief of staff to Rep. David Obey, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee. "It's hard to argue that, after being at war for five years, the cost was unforeseen."
Lilly contended that support in Congress for the war had weakened, "but not to the extent that a presidential veto could be overridden."
Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, has said he will begin to hold hearings on the supplemental bill in mid-January, after lawmakers return to Washington for the second session of the current Congress. The months in between, Berry said, will give the committee time to delve into the bill to determine whether all aspects of the funding request actually respond to an emergency.
Last week, 46 members of the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats, including Berry and Arkansas' Rep. Mike Ross, sent Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a letter urging her to support of the WarFunding Accountability Act. The bill, H.R. 714, would require the president to report to Congress each quarter on how supplemental funds have been spent.
In her testimony Wednesday, Belasco said the Defense Department has between $40 billion and $45 billion left from previous supplementals. If the Army shifted some of its spending, the war could be funded at its current level through mid-February, she said.
Even though Obey has set hearings for January, it is possible that debate on the supplemental will be much sooner, the Heritage Foundation's Doane said.
The president's request is caught up in a broader tangle between Bush and Congress on the annual appropriations bills. None of the 12 spending bills for this fiscal year has been sent to the president, who has chastised Congress for spending beyond its means.
As the end of the calendar year and next year's presidential primary season approach, members of Congress will want to go back home with their work on the spending bills done, Doane said. Action on the supplemental could make Bush less inclined toveto the appropriations bills.
"The supplemental is being used as a political tool to get them through," she said.
Arkansas' Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat, said she "found it hard to believe the president is calling us fiscally irresponsible" as debts to pay for the war in Iraq increase. "We've just begun the process of oversight."
Lincoln said it was "hard to say" whether sentiment for a set withdrawal date has grown on Capitol Hill.
The last time Congress sent a spending bill with a withdrawal date to the White House, in May, Bush vetoed it. The House failed, 222-203 to meet the twothirds requirement necessary to override the veto. Instead of a redeployment date, Congressrequired Bush to report on progress, or lack thereof, in Iraq.
An aide to Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who offered the troop-redeployment language in that bill, said Feingold is "likely" to offer a similar measure when the current supplemental comes up.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 10/26/2007