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CAN THE DEMOCRATS DELIVER THE VA BUDGET

BY VETERANS DAY? -- "Our bill is ready to go.

The president has said he'll sign it."

Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), has promised that the VA budget will be passed by Veterans Day.  That story here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfOCT07/nf102707-1.htm

That is now in doubt.

For more about the VA budget, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=va+budget&op=ph

Story here... http://ap.google.com/article/
ALeqM5h6dZR6Ran4SvzDtMx_YPyrtO3qkQD8SL08R80

Story below:

   Learn More about how to get a VA Loan today -- Click Here

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Congress, Bush Clash on Spending Bills

By ANDREW TAYLOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Democrats backed away from a spending showdown with President Bush on Thursday, dropping plans to tie the Pentagon budget to a massive labor and education measure that Bush has vowed to veto.

As negotiators began fashioning the first spending bill to send to Bush for the 2008 budget year that began Oct. 1, Democrats planned to group a bill providing $151 billion in discretionary funding for education, health and labor programs with a popular $65 billion measure funding veterans' programs and military base construction, instead of tying it to the Pentagon budget.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the decision to drop defense spending from the bill was a sign of the Democrats' willingness to compromise.

Republicans still objected to bundling together veterans and education funding, echoing the White House position that Congress should send separate spending bills.

The GOP holds the advantage since new Senate reforms enacted this year give Republicans the power to split the veterans funding from the underlying labor and health bill when it comes to the floor. Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Republicans had not decided whether they would do so.

Obey said putting the measures together made sense in order to move the budget process along and protect Congress' prerogative to set spending levels. He said that since the White House has refused to negotiate, Democrats have every right to challenge him.

"We do not feel an obligation to make the president's desire to cherry pick as easy as possible," Obey said.

Democrats have long fought for spending increases in the labor, health and education measure, the largest domestic spending bill. Bush's budget sought almost $4 billion in cuts from 2007 spending levels for programs covered by the bill, cuts that couldn't possibly pass Congress.

Instead, Democrats and moderate Republicans such as Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania added money to Bush's budget for popular programs including community health centers, education, health research and grants to community action groups helping the poor.

Democrats have also backed big increases for veterans programs, adding $3 billion in February for veterans medical programs and another $1.8 billion in May as part of a war funding measure.

The pending version of the veterans measure boosts veterans' programs funded at lawmakers' discretion to $43.1 billion, $3.7 billion over Bush's budget request. Funding for construction projects at military bases and to implement a 2005 round of base closings would receive a whopping $8.4 billion increase, to $21.5 billion.

Democrats appear to hope adding the veterans funds to the education and health measure might secure enough votes to override Bush's promised veto. The education and health measure fell just short this summer of the two-thirds margin that would be required to override a veto; the veterans funding bill passed 409-2.

"Our bill is ready to go. The president has said he'll sign it," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, top Republican on the veterans spending panel.

Bush in fact opposes the increases sought by Congress to the veterans budget, and the White House initially signaled a veto threat but backed off once warned by Republicans that any such veto would be overridden.

The move to separate Defense Department spending from the education bill came after Republicans on Wednesday accused Democrats of cynically using the military's needs to promote a domestic package the president considers bloated.

In a letter to Democratic leaders, 44 Republican senators charged that money for troops and veterans was being "held hostage for partisan purposes."

AP writer Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

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Larry Scott  --

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