{"id":3935,"date":"2008-06-19T16:27:15","date_gmt":"2008-06-19T15:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/dems-to-ok-bush-war-funds-without-conditions\/3935\/"},"modified":"2008-06-19T16:27:15","modified_gmt":"2008-06-19T15:27:15","slug":"dems-to-ok-bush-war-funds-without-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/dems-to-ok-bush-war-funds-without-conditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems to OK Bush War Funds Without Conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iraqfunding.jpg\"By ANDREW TAYLOR<\/a> | Democratic and GOP leaders in the House announced agreement Wednesday on a long-overdue war funding bill they said President Bush would be willing to sign. The agreement on the war funding bill, announced by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also paves the way for a quick infusion of emergency flood relief for the Midwest, an extension of unemployment payments for the jobless and a big boost in GI Bill college for veterans.<\/p>\n

It would also provide about $165 billion to the Pentagon to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for about a year. That’s enough time for Bush’s successor to set Iraq policy.<\/p>\n

“This is an agreement that has been worked out in a bipartisan way that I think is acceptable to both most Democrats and most Republicans and to the White House,” Boehner said.<\/p>\n

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the agreement contains several priorities for Democrats in the Senate but stopped short of issuing a direct endorsement, saying Reid needed to consult with his colleagues.<\/p>\n

The agreement would require that the Senate would agree to drop most of the more than $10 billion it added last month for programs such as heating subsidies for the poor, wildfire fighting, road and bridge repair and help for the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n

The House is slated to pass the measure Thursday, but the Senate won’t turn to it until next week, Manley said.<\/p>\n

The agreement drops restrictions on Bush’s ability to conduct the war and gives him almost all of the funding he sought well over a year ago for Iraq and Afghanistan. But he also backed away from veto threats he issued earlier over Democrats’ insistence on using the Iraq funding bill to carry a generous boost in the GI Bill and a 13-week extension of unemployment payments for people whose benefits have run out.<\/p>\n

Democrats dropped a provision to extend unemployment benefits for an additional 13 weeks in states with particularly high unemployment rates.<\/p>\n

The war funding bill had bedeviled Democratic leaders for months. Its passage has become more urgent with looming furloughs next month of civilian employees and contract workers.<\/p>\n

Conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats are upset that the new GI Bill benefits, with costs tentatively estimated at $62 billion over the next decade, will be added to the deficit instead of being “paid for” as called for under House rules.<\/p>\n

But the White House and Republicans insisted that House Democrats’ offset \u2013 a one-half percentage point surcharge on wealthier taxpayers \u2013 was unacceptable.<\/p>\n

Boehner and Hoyer would not immediately release details, saying the verbal agreement had yet to be written in congressional legalese.<\/p>\n

The agreement came just a day after the Bush administration urged Congress to provide $1.8 billion in immediate disaster aid for the Midwest and elsewhere. Congress is likely to add a little more, though details had not been ironed out.<\/p>\n

A dozen senators in both parties are pressing to add money for levee repair and help for displaced homeowners, among other pressing needs.<\/p>\n

Democrats and governors across the country emerged the victors in a battle with the White House to block new Bush administration rules designed to cut spending on Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ANDREW TAYLOR | Democratic and GOP leaders in the House announced agreement Wednesday on a long-overdue war funding bill they said President Bush would be willing to sign. The agreement on the war funding bill, announced by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also paves the way for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[27,29,64,38],"class_list":{"0":"post-3935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-war-terrorism","7":"tag-bush","8":"tag-democrats","9":"tag-world-news","10":"tag-iraq"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}