Congress Takes Up Spending Bills

[babylonsister]

Congress Takes Up Spending Bills

By Carl Hulse

With November arriving this week, Congressional Democrats are set to begin making their first serious moves in what has become an intricate legislative chess match with the White House over the stalled annual spending bills.

House and Senate negotiators are scheduled to begin hashing out their differences over a series of spending bills that cover the Pentagon and labor and health agencies and potentially prepare a measure or a combination of measures for delivery to President Bush.

The president and Congressional Republican leaders have been pressing Democrats to cough up the spending bills, hoping to shift the focus from the children’s health insurance measure that will be considered in the Senate this week to what Republicans believe is a better issue for them.

But Democrats are still trying to determine the best strategy for staggering the bills to send to the White House to either avoid a threatened veto by the president or entice enough Republicans to join them in overriding a veto.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic majority leader, said Mr. Bush’s promise to veto any spending bill that exceeds what he thinks is the appropriate limit has made the job of wrapping up the measures a bit difficult.

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http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/congress-takes-up-spending-bills/