June will be a busy month in the House of Representatives as the focus shifts to passing the 12 appropriations bills that fund all discretionary programs. Congressional Quarterly reports that the House is prepared to spend $23 billion more than the president has requested–and has already exceeded the president’s requests on the first four bills by some $9 billion. OMB Director Rob Portman is promising that the president will veto any spending bills that exceed his budget requests. If that’s the case, the president could wind up meaning a number of vetoes:
It’s hard to argue that domestic spending has been shortchanged under the Bush administration. According to the Congressional Budget Office, domestic discretionary spending–which includes all outlays except entitlement programs–increased by 57 percent from 2001 (the last Clinton budget) to 2006. The Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl reports that discretionary spending not related to defense and homeland security increased from $333 billion to $466 billion over the same time period. That’s an increase of 40 percent. Now the Democratic Congress promises an additional 9 percent increase for 2008 alone? And they call this a new era of ‘fiscal responsibility.’
