Congress Passes New Iraq War Funds
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:17 a.m. ET - June 27, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-usa-funding.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved $161.8 billion in new funds to continue fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next year, without timetables for withdrawing combat troops.
The House of Representatives passed an identical bill last week. President George W. Bush is expected to promptly sign the measure into law once he receives it from Congress.
The Senate’s 92-6 vote to pass the war-funding bill marked a victory for Bush, who has vigorously opposed any move by Congress to impose timetables for ending the Iraq war, now in its sixth year.
Democrats, who are the majority party in Congress, repeatedly had tried to set such dates, most recently with a House vote in May calling for troop withdrawals to be completed by December 31, 2009.
The new war money could last through mid-2009, well past Bush’s departure from office on January 20.
With this legislation, Democrats can claim victory in winning passage of a significant expansion of veterans’ education benefits and domestic unemployment benefits.
The new money for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan puts the war tab since late 2001 at more than $800 billion, with most of that money going to Iraq.
Congress did attach two conditions on the funds, related to the war in Iraq. It prohibited the construction of permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq and required Baghdad to match, dollar-for-dollar, U.S. reconstruction aid.
Now that Congress has passed the final war-funding bill of Bush’s presidency, debate of the Iraq war and how to end it moves to the presidential campaigns being waged by Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.
Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans get a huge new benefit with this legislation: A significant expansion of college tuition payments by the government at a cost of about $63 billion over 11 years.
(Editing by Eric Walsh)
Copyright 2008 Reuters Ltd.
Senate passes domestic spending, GI Bill
By J. Taylor Rushing
Posted: 06/26/08 10:24 PM [ET]
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/senate-passes-domestic-spending-gi-bill-2008-06-26.html
The Senate on Thursday night approved billions in domestic spending initiatives and a new GI Bill but fell a single vote short of passing Medicare legislation that would have prevented pay cuts to physicians.
The flurry of votes capped a day of dull inaction. Senators will now begin their Independence Day recess, following which they will take up legislation modernizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Tuesday, July 8. Partisan wrangling delayed action on housing legislation until after the recess.
The supplemental, which passed by a 92-6 vote, authorized a new GI Bill, Gulf Coast and Midwest flood recovery funds and an extension of unemployment benefits. It will be added to $165 billion that the House and Senate have already approved for U.S. military needs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Medicare legislation would have blocked a 10.6 percent fee cut to physicians that is scheduled to take effect on July 1. It failed 58-40, two shy of the required 60, but Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) switched his vote to “no” as a procedural move that allows him to bring the bill back up for a future vote. Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and GOP presidential candidate John McCain (R-Ariz.) missed the vote.
However, the White House had issued a veto threat for the bill, meaning that even getting to sixty votes would not have been sufficient for an override.
Crossing the aisle to support the Democratic-written bill were Republicans Norm Coleman (Minn.), Susan Collins (Maine), Elizabeth Dole (N.C.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Gordon Smith (Ore.), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Ted Stevens (Alaska) and George Voinovich (Ohio). Coleman, Collins, Dole and Smith are all considered politically vulnerable in November.
Democrats argued that the Medicare cuts were devastating and needed to be prevented, and a simple extension of the existing Medicare system is not acceptable to the House.
“We must decide whether to stick with President Bush like lemmings over the cliff, or do the right thing and pass this bill,” said Reid. “There are no other opportunities to prevent this cut.”
But Republicans said since Bush would have issued a veto that could not be overridden, the smarter choice was to deny cloture on the bill, which could presumably allow time for bipartisan negotiations on a bill that could get his signature without disrupting physicians’ incomes too much.
“My side has been willing to negotiate. We tried to find a way to solve the problems,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “Apparently the majority isn’t interested.”
Republicans also criticized the bill for expanding Medicare by $17 billion over 10 years and causing service cuts in the Medicare Advantage plan. Democrats said the cuts were the only way to fund the bill.
The Medicare vote required the attendance of both Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who were at a joint fundraiser across town. Obama was also prepared to return for a vote on FISA, although that became unnecessary after Reid decided to delay that until July.
© 2008 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.