Budget battle escalates between Bush and Dems

President Bush and congressional leaders traded accusations Tuesday about who is stalling progress on spending bills and the nation’s top priorities.

{mosads}Bush strode out of a meeting with Republican leaders at the White House and scolded the Democratic majority for focusing too much on investigating his administration and repeatedly attempting to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.

“We’re near the end of the year, and there really isn’t much to show for it,” Bush told reporters following a meeting with House GOP leaders. “The House of Representatives has wasted valuable time on a constant stream of investigations, and the Senate has wasted valuable time on an endless series of failed votes to pull our troops out of Iraq.”

Democrats, clearly enthused to share a stage and camera with Bush, warmed to the fight.

“The president calls congressional oversight that has uncovered tens of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq a ‘waste of time,’ ” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “We call billions spent in no-bid contracts to Halliburton a waste of money. We call that criminal.”

Democratic leaders eagerly ticked off the bills they have sent to Bush’s desk — a minimum-wage hike, a student loan overhaul, implementation of the 9/11 Commission recommendations and ethics rules — and stressed that he signed them.

 “Instead of criticizing Congress, the president’s time would be better spent working in a bipartisan way to end this disastrous war in Iraq, keep our promises to our veterans by providing the largest veterans’ healthcare investment in history, and providing healthcare for 10 million children,” Pelosi said.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democrats have been making progress but have been blocked by Republican obstruction. He said Bush is complaining now only because Congress will not do his bidding as it did when Republicans were in control.

“This president is defying the will of the American people, and he’s chagrined that things have changed, so he’s complaining,” Hoyer said.

Bush pointed to recent legislation to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the farm bill, the energy bill and a small-business bill as examples of Democrats’ effort to raise taxes.

Democrats retorted that they have found ways to pay for the programs they have proposed, rather than simply adding to the debt.

Bush also argued that the Democrats’ proposed spending “is skyrocketing under their leadership,” adding that they seek to spend an additional $205 billion over the next five years. Democrats note that sum is roughly what Bush is seeking next year for Iraq.

In reference to reports that Democrats could attempt to tie a military spending bill and the Veterans Affairs funding legislation to the Labor/Health and Human Services appropriations bill, Bush said it is “hard to imagine a more cynical political strategy than trying to hold hostage funding for our troops in combat and our wounded warriors in order to extract $11 billion in additional social spending.”

Bush said he would “veto such a three-bill pileup” and urged Congress to pass the measures separately.

Democrats said they had not finalized their appropriations strategy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that a House-Senate conference committee plans to meet Thursday to begin sending bills to Bush’s desk, on the one-month anniversary of the new fiscal year.

“There will be a determination made by the committee, the conference committee, at that time, whether we’re going to do individual bills,” Reid said, adding that it is a “possibility we could bring back a conference with more than one bill in it. So that’s what we’re working on.”

Also on Tuesday, Reid strongly rejected a proposal to include temporary funding for the Iraq war in appropriations legislation that Congress plans to send to Bush’s desk soon.

With Bush’s nearly $200 billion war supplemental for fiscal 2008 languishing, Congress would either have to approve a temporary “bridge fund” to keep military operations afloat until that package is approved or require the Pentagon to dip into its fiscal 2008 dollars to pay for military operations in Iraq in Afghanistan. A continuing resolution has extended $70 billion in war funding until Nov. 16.

Further stopgap measures could also include war funding. Anti-war lawmakers have objected to including the funding in the upcoming appropriations measure, aides said Tuesday.

 “We’re not going to, at this stage, get into any bridges or anything dealing with the supplemental. We’ll have to do that at some subsequent time,” Reid said. “It’s a sign that the president does not have a blank check on the $200 billion of the red ink he wants to spend on a war that’s going to wind up costing this country about $2.5 trillion.”