Wartime Supplemental Update

May 15, 2008

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) indicated he would bring the House version of the supplemental to the floor if and when it passes that chamber. The results of today’s Senate Appropriations markup will be offered as an amendment to the House bill. Senate Republicans may object, thereby requiring a 60-vote threshold for it to replace the House version. The House will vote on a provision calling for the redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq to begin within 30 days with a non-binding “goal” of completion within 18 months. It will be offered as an amendment to the supplemental vehicle, the fiscal 2008 military construction appropriations bill. The Senate language will be offered this afternoon when Senate Appropriations marks up its version.

While the House bill would hold spending within Bush’s top line of $183.3 billion, the Senate committee’s version is expected to provide about $9 billion more. That version may include a number of items not in the House bill, such as $490 million for so-called Byrne grants to assist state and local law enforcement agencies, $275 million for the Food and Drug Administration, $451 million for the Federal Highway Administration’s emergency relief program and $400 million to help rural counties where federal timber royalties have declined. The Senate version also is expected to provide $1.2 billion to promote long-term economic development and would be disbursed to NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Energy Department.

Senate Republicans have a variety of amendments that would add more funding to the supplemental. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) is seeking to provide $50 million for the Adam Walsh Act, which tracks unregistered sex offenders. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) would like $600,000 for veterans’ centers in several states to prevent them from closing, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) said she had prepared a few amendments related to funding for NASA, veterans and drug trafficking suppression, but had not yet decided whether she would offer them.

House and Senate Democratic leaders appear resolute in their decision to include a veterans’ education benefit and unemployment insurance benefits. But a compromise reached between House Democratic leadership and the fiscally conservative “Blue Dogs” to offset the $52 billion cost over 10 years of the veterans’ benefit by applying a .47 percent surtax to adjusted gross income over $1 million for joint filers appeared unlikely to survive. Democratic Senate support for the proposal appeared limited. Before they can send a bill to the White House, the chambers will need to resolve differences, such as whether to exceed Bush’s discretionary number of $183.8 billion for war and levee funding. Even after the chambers resolve their differences, Congress will face a final roadblock: the White House. The administration has made clear that it opposes adding the unemployment benefits and veterans’ legislation on the supplemental. And they would be sure to oppose the surtax if it managed to make it into the final product.