Washington – Former Rep. Jim Nussle, President Bush’s new budget director, is likely to find himself in the middle of a series of fights with the Democratic-controlled Congress.
Foremost among challenges for the Iowa Republican – confirmed by the Senate on a 69-24 vote Tuesday – is a glut of unfinished spending bills. Other budget battles between the administration and congressional Democrats include extending farm subsidies and a popular health insurance program for the poor and renewing more than 40 expiring tax cuts.
The Oct. 1 beginning of the 2008 budget year is looming, and the Senate has passed just one of 12 bills to fund the agency budgets that Congress is required to pass each year.
Veto threats hang over most of the bills and a long and contentious fall budget season is expected. It’s commonly assumed that whichever bills are vetoed or not even passed by the Senate will be bundled into a multi-bill “omnibus” measure.
Some Democrats questioned whether Nussle – who gained a reputation as an unpopular partisan during eight terms in the House – is the right choice to be Bush’s point man in budget talks with Democrats. At some point, it will take backroom talks to produce a deal on the unfinished appropriations bills.
But Bush has staked out a hard line in his public statements so far, vowing to veto spending bills that exceed his $933 billion “cap” on the one-third of the federal budget dished out by the appropriations committees each year. Democrats exceeded Bush’s appropriations limits by about $23 billion in drawing up their budget plans.
“I look forward to helping to develop and implement the president’s agenda by working with Congress on our common goal of balancing the budget and making government more efficient,” Nussle said after the vote. “We also need to hold the line on spending.”
However, the Senate on Tuesday took up a bill providing $64.7 billion in discretionary budget funding for veterans’ programs and military base construction. Bush has not threatened to veto that bill – funding politically sacrosanct veterans medical programs – even though it’s $4 billion higher than his request.
