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Congress will send President Bush an emergency supplemental spending bill he can sign by the Independence Day holiday that is to start June 27, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “I feel confident we will do that,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference Thursday. That gives the House a little more than two weeks to get it done. House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) says that will require a House vote by Wednesday in order to give the Senate time to pass it. Still, he said, there’s no deal with President Bush, the Senate or conservative House Democrats who object to adding the cost of a new educational benefit for veterans onto the deficit. “We’ll work it out,” Murtha said. “We always work it out.” Those conservative House Democrats say they still have not seen a plan that they can vote for, and are getting irritated with the Senate, which voted for the educational benefit, but didn’t finance it. “We’re very frustrated with the Senate,” said Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), a Blue Dog member who has been involved in negotiations. “Republicans and too many of our Democrats have failed to live up to their fiscal responsibility.” Blue Dogs have proposed paying the $52 billion cost of the benefit with a tax on people with incomes over $500,000, which the House agreed to but the Senate did not. The original deadline was Memorial Day, and the Bush administration has threatened that the Pentagon could start sending out furlough notices to civilian employees if it does not get money soon. Congressional sources say the Pentagon has informed the Appropriations Committee that the furlough notices are not being sent, but military officials are preparing for possible furloughs. |
