WASHINGTON — The House on Monday approved a $516 billion measure funding 14 Cabinet agencies and troops in Afghanistan, setting the stage for a year-end budget deal with the White House.
President Bush has signaled he’ll ultimately sign the measure — assuming up to $40 billion more is provided by the Senate for the Iraq war — despite opposition from GOP conservatives.
In an unusual two-step, lawmakers first voted 253-154 to approve the omnibus spending bill; they then voted 206-201 to add $31 billion for troops in Afghanistan to the measure. The combined $516 billion spending package is set for Senate debate today.
The year-end measure mostly sticks within Bush’s budget, though it shifts billions of dollars into politically sensitive programs he sought to cut. Bush signaled he would sign the measure, awarding a 4 percent increase, on average, to domestic programs.
Bush’s approval depends on Senate Republicans’ succeeding, later this week, in adding up to $40 billion for troops in Iraq.
“We’re making some pretty good prog ress toward coming up with a fiscally sound budget, one that meets priorities, helps on some emergencies and enables us to say that we’ve been fiscally sound with the people’s money,” Bush said Monday.
The 1,482-page bill has been shorn of Democratic policy riders that drew veto threats, such as an attempt to ease or end restrictions on aid to overseas family planning groups that provide abortions.
Republicans generally opposed the omnibus bill measure because it fails to include funding for military operations in Iraq and provides $13 billion above Bush’s “top line” request for the one-third of the budget passed each year by Congress.
The Senate is expected to approve the bill after substituting $70 billion in funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. The complicated plan calls for the House to have a vote limited to the war funding.
That vote, if successful, would clear the combined bill for Bush’s approval and allow lawmakers to go home for Christmas.
The result would be a twin defeat for Democrats, who had vowed not to allow additional Iraq war funding without conditions and had spent months on legislation to add $27 billion to domestic programs, an almost 7 percent increase.
Bush sought a much smaller increase, less than 1 percent, for domestic programs other than military base construction; the Democratic bill provides domestic increases averaging about 4 percent, once “emergency” funding above Bush’s budget is included.
The spending bill includes several Colorado provisions, including $61.3 million for Fitzsimons VA Hospital in Denver. The funding will allow construction to begin on the parking structure and the energy plant. Reps. John Salazar, D-Manassa, and Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden, and Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., worked on that part.
The bill also includes language from Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Salazar allowing the city of Aurora to transfer land to the Department of Veterans Affairs to become part of the Fitzsimons Hospital campus.
Perlmutter and Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, obtained $7 million for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden.
Denver Post staff writer Anne Mul kern contributed to this report.
