GOP is split on the president’s spending fight

Congressional Republican leaders are split over how much backing they will give to President Bush in his fiscal fight with the Democrats.

The House GOP, keen to reconnect with what many regard as lost Republican principles of fiscal restraint and small government, has supported the president’s attack on Democratic spending plans. In the Senate, however, GOP leaders have mixed feelings.

{mosads}Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, for one, finds himself in a politically complicated position in the battle over a spending package that delivers millions of dollars in federal funds to his home state of Kentucky.

As a result, McConnell must balance the needs of his constituents, who will vote next year on giving him a fifth Senate term, with his role as leader at a time when many Republicans argue the party must re-establish its conservative bona fides on fiscal issues.

McConnell has refrained from taking a strong position on a proposal that would combine the unfinished spending bills in an omnibus package exceeding the president’s budget by $11 billion.

The proposal is a compromise floated by Democrats who cut their spending proposals in order to reach a bipartisan agreement.

The highest-ranking House Republican leaders, Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.), have slammed the peace offering.

“Democratic efforts to simply ‘split the difference’ between their desired spending levels and the more responsible levels supported by Republicans will be met with stiff opposition, particularly if the majority continues its plan of passing wasteful, pork-barrel projects on the backs of our soldiers and commanders,” said Boehner Monday in reference to the anticipated strategy of packaging domestic spending with funding for veterans and other military needs. “Democratic leaders should not treat critical federal spending bills like a numbers game.”

McConnell has taken a more circumspect stance.

At a press conference Monday, he expressed interest in seeing an omnibus bill passed.

“Obviously we don’t have any consuming desire to be here until Christmas Eve,” he said. “We’re working on it.”

McConnell, Boehner and Blunt met with Bush at the White House on Tuesday afternoon to discuss their strategy on spending and other end-of-session issues.

McConnell is the first Republican leader to serve on the Appropriations Committee since the 1950s, according to the Senate Historical Office. He has helped craft the spending bills now hanging in the balance. He has also served for years on the panel with ranking Republican Thad Cochran (Miss.), who called the Democrats’ split-the-difference proposal “fair” and is working on an agreement.

If leaders fail to reach a deal on spending, the appropriations bills, along with a slew of projects for Kentucky, would fall by the wayside.

Such a failure would be especially vexing for McConnell because he is facing what he has called the most difficult reelection of his career. Democrats say they are targeting McConnell, but have not yet recruited a candidate to challenge the minority leader.

McConnell has made his ability to deliver federal goods and services a central focus of his campaign. In his first campaign television ad aired last month, McConnell touted his work on the Appropriations panel. The spot highlighted $280 million he secured for Kentucky universities as well as funds he directed to destroy a chemical weapons stockpile at the Blue Grass Army Depot, which local activists have decried as a public danger.

McConnell has emphasized his appropriations prowess in press releases.

On Sept. 11, McConnell issued a statement announcing his role in winning $89.5 million in funding for Kentucky in the defense bill, the only appropriations bill that has become law.

The next day he announced $14 million for Kentucky projects in the Senate-passed transportation bill.

On Oct. 16, he touted the Senate’s approval of his request for $5.8 million in funding for Kentucky’s universities and law enforcement agencies.

On Oct. 23, he pointed out that the Senate had approved his requests of $15.2 million in funding for several Kentucky universities.  

Except for the project funding in the defense bill, the millions McConnell has secured for his constituents would disappear if Republicans blocked the omnibus or Bush vetoed it and Democrats could not muster enough votes to override him.

Though McConnell has much invested in the various bills, he made clear Tuesday that the spending package should not pass unless Congress also approves funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“My view, and I think the view of the majority of my conference, is that any passage of an omnibus must include an adequate fund for the troops to carry over into probably March of next year,” he said. “So those two issues will be inextricably intertwined.”

Don Stewart, McConnell’s spokesman, said that his boss wanted the appropriations bills passed one by one instead of being combined into a massive omnibus.

“This isn’t something he believes has gone well,” said Stewart. “The Democrats have not done this the right way and so now we have to talk about an omnibus and possibly a continuing resolution. He’s going to keep working for Kentucky.”

If the omnibus did not become law, Congress would have to pass a continuing resolution or stop-gap measure to keep the government operating. But this alternative would not include the hundreds of earmarks lawmakers have labored to win for their constituents.

One McConnell aide pointed to his boss’s votes for motions to send legislation back to the Appropriations Committee with instructions to reduce spending. He argued that it showed that McConnell has remained a leader for fiscal conservatism.

 Nevertheless, McConnell’s roles as leader and bacon-winner have forced him into contorted positions at times.

For example, he was the only senator to vote for the Water Resources Development Act when it passed the Senate but against an effort to override Bush’s veto of the project-laden bill.