Chambers go to war on war bill

The debate over the emergency supplemental spending bill is turning into a House-Senate feud.

House members in recent days have criticized the Senate for insisting that domestic spending provisions be included in the bill, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has chided the House for its fear of a veto.

{mosads}“It’s very frustrating that the Senate is acting irresponsibly,” said Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), a leader of the Blue Dog Coalition, which wants a new $50 billion GI Bill to be paid for with a tax hike on the wealthy. The Senate opposes the tax measure.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) also had harsh words for the Senate’s handling of the GI Bill, which would provide educational and healthcare benefits to veterans.

“To hold our veterans hostage to a Senate that won’t pay for things, and their healthcare hostage and their future well-being hostage to a Senate that won’t pay for things, I think is not good policy,” Hoyer said.

Hoyer’s comments were directed more at Senate Republicans, but Reid is staunchly defending his bill, and Thursday he was dismissive of the House’s central concern — avoiding a veto.

“We’re not going to be frightened into doing something the president wants,” Reid said. “We’re going to deliberately decide what we think is the best thing for this country.”

Still, Reid didn’t criticize the House by name. In fact, he said he’d been working with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the issue more closely than “ever before.”

House leaders are strenuously trying to avoid a veto because, unlike the Senate, they don’t believe they have the votes to override one. The Senate passed its two-part supplemental with vote totals above 70, but in the House, war funding didn’t even pass the first time because of a protest vote by Republicans.

Reid spoke most pointedly of the need to include extended unemployment insurance benefits, an element of the Senate bill that House leaders have stripped out to reduce the overall price tag.

“I can’t understand how the president could be so cold-hearted not to have some concern about these people who are out of work,” Reid said. “So without belaboring what is going to be in this when we get it back from the House, I personally hope unemployment compensation is in it.”

But on the House side, there’s been less discussion about unemployment insurance than the GI Bill, which would essentially guarantee state-school college tuition to Iraq war veterans.

The fiscally conservative Blue Dogs don’t want the $50 billion cost of the bill heaped onto the national debt, and have supported a tax increase on those making more than $500,000 to pay for it. The tax passed the House, but the Senate rejected it.

Some House leaders had figured that if the original House version of the GI Bill was “paid for,” the Blue Dogs would relent when it came back from the Senate without the tax increase. But the coalition has not given in, and is again threatening to block consideration of the bill by voting against the rule needed to bring it to the floor.

“That’s the only leverage we have,” said Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.), a Blue Dog leader. “We continue to try to express our viewpoint.”

House leaders had tried to bring the bill to the floor for a vote this week, but adjourned before the Friday vote. Aides said leadership is now hoping to bring it up Tuesday or Wednesday, with Wednesday being more likely.

Manu Raju contributed to this story.