Deal allows separate Senate vote on war funding
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press
May 22, 2008
Page 2 of 2
The unusual procedure in both House and Senate allowed separate votes on components of the measure to allow Democrats and a few Republicans to tack domestic programs onto Bush's war request, while Republicans would supply the votes to adopt the war funding.
Republicans say the process is unfair, and when the House debated the war funding measure last week, angry Republicans sat out the vote and combined with anti-war Democrats to kill the war funding. But the House easily passed the GI Bill improvements, an increase in unemployment benefits and restrictions on Bush's ability to conduct the war in Iraq.
In the Senate, members of the Appropriations Committee added more than $10 million in discretionary funding not requested by Bush, including funding for grants to state and local police departments, $1 billion for energy subsidies for the poor and more than $1 billion to help Mississippi recover from Hurricane Katrina.
Reid always held a dim view of the domestic extras, knowing they would guarantee a veto and reinforce perceptions that Senate is too profligate. Indeed, Appropriations Committee members treated the war funding bill like the last train leaving the station, and, as a result, added billions of dollars for pet programs.
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