Will they get away with it? It will take a filibuster to stop them. "The Hill"
_______________________________________
GOP: We’ll strip loan language
Leadership says Bush will prevail in conference
By Klaus Marre
Republican leaders predict that President Bush is likely to prevail in a House-Senate dispute over Iraqi spending.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), the Republican Conference chairman, told The Hill that a Senate vote last week requiring some of the Iraq reconstruction funds to be made available as loans was a “temporary setback.” He said the language “will be taken out in conference” with the House.
Nevertheless, both chambers had sent a warning shot across the White House bow by paring back the president’s initial $20.3 billion Iraq reconstruction budget by $1.65 billion and at least temporarily opposing in part the administration’s funding approach.
However, Santorum and other key GOP lawmakers are now confident that they can kill the Senate provision requiring half the Iraq aid be conditioned as a loan unless other nations forgive debts accumulated by Baghdad under Saddam Hussein.
The lopsided House and Senate vote margins in favor of the supplemental measure indicate that final approval could come in time for an international conference in Madrid on Iraq’s future later this week.
In an interview Friday, Santorum said the knowledge that the GOP has “enough votes to pass this” would make it easier to take the language out in conference.
Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.) has indicated that most members of his caucus would vote for the supplemental spending bill in the Senate even if the loan provision were deleted.
The Senate is the only place where Democrats could conceivably stop the supplemental spending bill. However, nobody expects this to happen because most of the money would go to the military and Democrats do not want to be seen as not supporting the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While final passage of the conference agreement is not in doubt, Daschle argued that Republicans would take out the loan provision “at their own peril” and that such a move would be a “big mistake” that sends “all the wrong messages to the American people.”
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said it would be “delicate” to strip out the loan provision. He added it would be one thing for a lawmaker to not support the language during a floor vote but another to take it out in conference.
Nelson said there would be “a political cost associated with taking it out.” However, the lawmaker also said that the fact that final passage of the legislation is not in doubt would make it easier for Republicans to take out the loan provision in conference.
Prior to the vote, Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said if the loan provision would attract a lot of support, supporters of the language could apply pressure in conference. The amendment cleared the Senate 51 to 47 with eight Republicans crossing party lines.
Daschle applauded the Republicans who voted with the Democrats on the loan provision. He called the vote a “critical moment,” saying it is “encouraging” that GOP lawmakers are more frequently “willing to stand up to this administration on issues that they care deeply about.”
Furthermore, he said that GOP leaders who want to provide all construction money in the form of grants are not taking the concerns of the American people as seriously as they should.
“I think that people’s concern about our priorities are far more consequential than a lot of my colleagues seem to appreciate,” he said.
The Senate approved the supplemental bill 87-12, with 11 Democrats and independent James Jeffords (Vt.) voting against the measure and one Republican, Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), not voting.
Daschle last week also called on GOP leaders to include Democrats in the conference negotiations. “This is too important and it is too bipartisan an issue for us to delegate responsibility to one or two people in the House and the Senate to resolve these matters. We insist on being there to have the opportunity to make the case that we made on the Senate floor last night,” Daschle said.
The Democratic leader added that the Senate stated “loudly and clearly” that Iraq should share some of the financial burden of its own reconstruction. Passing the amendment, Daschle said, responded “to the concerns expressed to us overwhelmingly by the American people.”
thehill.com |
