Republicans cried foul Monday over House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel’s public acknowledgment earlier this week that Democratic leaders stuffed the “emergency” Iraq war spending bill with pork barrel spending in order to win votes.
“Because they needed the votes,” Rangel responded to a question Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about why the House bill contained more than $20 billion in domestic spending unrelated to the war in Iraq. Included in the “emergency” bill is money for spinach farmers, peanut storage and shrimp farmers.
A group of conservative Republicans vowed in a letter to President Bush on Monday to sustain a veto from him over the ancillary spending. Bush also has said he will veto the bill because it contains “artificial” timetables for withdrawal from Iraq.
“It is outrageous for the majority party in Congress to insert billions in pork into a troop funding bill to influence votes and strong-arm the unpopular slow bleed strategy through congress,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the Texas Republican who leads the conservative GOP Study Committee.
“Our nation is at war,” he said. “Republicans will stand with our troops against such contemptible politicking.” Hensarling is among those Republicans who were equally critical of similar GOP spending habits in past congresses.
Democrats, meanwhile, plan to slice out some of that pork before sending the bill to Bush later this month, aides on Capitol Hill told The Examiner. They will not, however, remove the additional spending they inserted for veterans’ health care and other domestic programs aimed at helping heal soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If Bush gets a significantly pared-down bill, he will be faced with vetoing it over the withdrawal timetables, which is politically more tricky for him since public opinion has turned strongly against the war.
Republicans on Capitol Hill say they are confident they can sustain a Bush veto on either grounds.
House GOP leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, joined about 150 congressional Republicans at the White House last week for a private meeting. When Boehner asked his fellow Republicans if they would support Bush’s veto of the bill, Republicans shot to their feet for sustained applause.
“The timetables for withdrawal are what unified the Republican conference in opposition to the Democratic” war–spending bill, Boehner spokesman Brian Kennedy said. “The $20 billion in unrelated pork spending further steeled their resolve.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., warned that if Bush vetoes the bill, “he sets the record for undermining troops more than any president we’ve ever had.”
Both sides acknowledge that winning the stalemate will depend on which side does a better job of blaming the other for failing to approve troop funding.
“It’s going to be all his fault,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said. “The president has no one else to blame but himself if he vetoes this bill.”
Bush has tried pressuring Congress by saying that soldiers will start feeling the pinch if money is not approved before April 15. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress that the squeeze won’t be felt until May.
Reid on Friday distributed an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service asserting that the standoff could go well into the summer before the Army begins running out of money.
“This study confirms that the president is once again attempting to mislead the public and create an artificial atmosphere of anxiety,” Reid said Friday. “He is using scare tactics to defeat bipartisan legislation.”
