Richard Tafoya
May 21st, 2007, 08:49 PM
LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warfunds22may22,0,6014711.story?coll=la-home-center
Scrambling to send President Bush an emergency war spending bill he will sign, Democratic leaders have decided to drop their insistence on a timeline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.
The move -- which comes just days after senior Democrats insisted that White House officials should support nonbinding timelines -- is a significant concession to the president and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill, who steadfastly have rejected any dates for bringing U.S. troops home.
But it reflects the simple mathematics of a closely divided Congress in which Democrats cannot muster veto-proof majorities for any proposal that would compel a pullout.
Democratic lawmakers are under pressure to send the president an emergency spending bill before the Memorial Day break or risk being blamed for withholding critical funding for U.S. troops.
Under the developing Democratic plan, which leaders still are negotiating, Congress would fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, according to sources familiar with the proposal.
Democrats also are working to include a minimum-wage hike in the funding bill in an effort to push that long-delayed legislative priority into law.
But further discussion of withdrawal timelines that have been central to the Democratic legislative campaign to end the war would have to be delayed until Congress considers other legislation, probably the defense appropriations bill necessary to fund the military for fiscal year 2008, which begins Oct. 1. Democrats plan to take up that bill later this summer.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warfunds22may22,0,6014711.story?coll=la-home-center
Scrambling to send President Bush an emergency war spending bill he will sign, Democratic leaders have decided to drop their insistence on a timeline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.
The move -- which comes just days after senior Democrats insisted that White House officials should support nonbinding timelines -- is a significant concession to the president and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill, who steadfastly have rejected any dates for bringing U.S. troops home.
But it reflects the simple mathematics of a closely divided Congress in which Democrats cannot muster veto-proof majorities for any proposal that would compel a pullout.
Democratic lawmakers are under pressure to send the president an emergency spending bill before the Memorial Day break or risk being blamed for withholding critical funding for U.S. troops.
Under the developing Democratic plan, which leaders still are negotiating, Congress would fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, according to sources familiar with the proposal.
Democrats also are working to include a minimum-wage hike in the funding bill in an effort to push that long-delayed legislative priority into law.
But further discussion of withdrawal timelines that have been central to the Democratic legislative campaign to end the war would have to be delayed until Congress considers other legislation, probably the defense appropriations bill necessary to fund the military for fiscal year 2008, which begins Oct. 1. Democrats plan to take up that bill later this summer.