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Blue Dogs Say Vets' Bill Needs Offsets

By David Clarke, CQ Staff
CQ TODAY PRINT EDITION
June 3, 2008

Blue Dog Coalition leaders said they oppose a proposal floated by House Democratic leadership Tuesday to attach to the war funding bill (HR 2642) an expanded education benefit for veterans that is not offset by additional revenue or spending cuts.

This leaves Democrats still searching for a way to pass a bill to fund a war they oppose while including at least some of their own priorities — something they had hoped to have done by Memorial Day.

"I don't suspect they'll be bringing a bill to the floor that's not paid for," said Mike Ross, D-Ark., a Blue Dog leader. "I think the leadership knows how to count votes."

Ross said he believes a majority of Blue Dogs, 49 fiscally conservative Democrats, would vote against a bill that does not include an offset for the estimated $52 billion, 10-year cost of the veterans' education benefit. That could make it difficult to get it through the House.

But even if Blue Dogs hold firm, it will be tough to vote against the veterans' benefit when the time comes. Enough Republicans could vote for the expanded benefit if no offset, such as a tax increase, is included.

Leaders had hoped to have a bill on the floor Friday, but amid the continuing negotiations, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said he wasn't sure if that would still be possible.

Including the veterans' benefit is a priority of Democratic leaders in both chambers, who say it is a cost of war. They also do not want to provide funding for the war without getting President Bush to accept some of their priorities. The administration supports some form of education benefit but wants it considered separately from the war supplemental.

The benefit Democrats want to add is based on a measure (S 22) proposed by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. His proposal would provide veterans educational benefits up to the highest tuition rates of a public college or university in their state, as well as a monthly housing stipend determined by geographical area. The Pentagon has cautioned this could lead to retention problems, and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, has backed a package (S 2938) that would require more service time before the benefit could be used.

Blue Dogs support the benefit but want it offset, since their main organizing principle is that new mandatory spending or tax cuts should be offset so that the government does not run up more debt — the "pay-as-you-go" rule.

House vs. Senate
House and Senate leaders met late Tuesday afternoon in the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to discuss, among other things, what to do with the war supplemental. House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., then traveled to a separate Blue Dog meeting in the Longworth Office Building. Although Obey entered the room to light applause, the message he brought was not well received.

Blue Dogs who attended the meeting said Obey told them the best course for getting a bill — one that the president might sign — through the Senate is to not include an offset and to limit additional discretionary spending to what has been requested for the wars.

But Blue Dogs have grown increasingly frustrated with the Senate, believing its Democratic leaders do not make enough of an effort to challenge Republican opposition to offsets, and do not want to give up on pursuing an offset.
"The Senate needs to step up here and recognize that you've got to pay for this stuff," said Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., another Blue Dog leader.

In many ways, House leaders are back where they started last month. Before eventually adopting a war spending package on May 15 with some additional items, House leaders had to include at the Blue Dogs' insistence a surtax on the wealthy that would pay for the veterans' benefit. The surtax would have applied to adjusted gross incomes of more than $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for joint filers.

A week later the Senate adopted a package that did not include the offset and also added more than $10 billion in discretionary funding — a move that had Blue Dogs fuming.

Details were murky, but it appears Democrats may also jettison some items that were included in the separate packages adopted by the House and Senate, such as an extension of unemployment insurance and language blocking new Medicaid regulations.

When asked whether the unemployment insurance extension would be in the war spending bill, Hoyer said, "Probably not."