Washington – The Senate voted Wednesday to divert some of the money President Bush requested for the war in Iraq to instead increase security on the nation’s borders and give the Coast Guard new boats and helicopters.
Senators also ignored a White House veto threat and overwhelmingly voted against cutting a $106.5 billion measure funding Iraq, further hurricane relief for the Gulf Coast and a slew of add-ons opposed by fiscal conservatives and Bush.
Among those add-ons is a $700 million project to relocate a rail line along the Mississippi coast so the state can build a new east-west highway to spur economic development. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., moved Wednesday to strike the project and 18 others, totaling $2.7 billion, saying they don’t belong in the emergency war funding bill.
On border security, the Senate voted 59-39 for a plan to cut Bush’s Iraq request by $1.9 billion to pay for new aircraft, patrol boats and other vehicles, as well as border checkpoints and a fence along the Mexico border crossing near San Diego.
While the border security funds had broad support, Democrats and Republicans argued over whether the cuts to Pentagon war spending would harm troops in Iraq. The cuts, sought by Judd Gregg, R-N.H., would trim Bush’s request for the war by almost 3 percent, but he didn’t specify how.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said Gregg’s cuts would “take money from troop pay, body armor and even the joint improvised explosive device defeat fund. Now that is a false choice, and it is a wrong choice.”
Gregg argued that the cuts would come from other parts of the massive Pentagon budget rather than U.S. forces in Iraq.
The Senate voted by a veto-proof 72-26 margin to kill an attempt by conservatives to cut the overall bill back to Bush’s request – just a day after Bush promised to veto the $106.5 billion bill unless it is cut back to below $95 billion.
