Congress, Bush near a spending showdown

Congressional Democrats neared a spending showdown with President Bush on Wednesday, tying a must-pass military bill to a labor-education measure that Bush has vowed to veto.

With many Republicans backing the White House, the plan appeared unlikely to resolve Congress' appropriations struggles, which continue as the 2008 fiscal year enters its second month. The strategy carries political risks for both parties.

Republicans accused Democrats of cynically using the military's needs to promote a domestic package the president considers bloated. Democrats said the package underscores the administration's eagerness to pour billions of dollars into the Iraq war while cutting education and job-training programs and trying to limit the growth of a children's health insurance program.

The Democratic plan, which House-Senate negotiators will tackle Thursday, would combine three spending bills into one package totaling about $675 billion, or 70 percent of the government's discretionary budget. Assuming it passes both houses, Bush says he would veto it and demand that Congress return the bills individually.

Bush and his GOP allies support the bill to fund the Defense Department, and another to pay for veterans matters. But they oppose the third bill, which would fund the Labor Department and Health and Human Services.

Bush says the labor-health bill contains several billion dollars of unneeded spending. "I will veto such a three-bill pileup," he said Tuesday.

Democrats say the proposed spending on health, education and other areas is needed. They say Bush made draconian, unrealistic cuts in his fiscal 2008 budget request, making Congress' increases inevitable.

Democrats noted that it's not unusual to have two or more appropriations bills bundled into a package. Combining the labor-health bill with the Pentagon spending measure is the only way to pressure Bush into signing the labor bill, they said.

"The president wants to cherry-pick," House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said Wednesday on the House floor.

Republicans denounced the plan.

"It's a political trick," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a fiery floor speech. "You're daring the president to veto this bill," knowing that he will, Boehner told Democrats. "It makes me sick to watch this process continue."

The three-bill package does not include emergency spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because liberal Democrats would object. Congress will act on that matter later.