Democrats Plan To Send FY 2008 Spending Bills To President Bush That Would Increase Funds For Health Research, Other Issues

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 04 Oct 2007 - 12:00 PDT

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Democratic leaders on Tuesday said that during the next seven weeks they plan to send to President Bush fiscal year 2008 appropriations bills that would increase funds for health research and other domestic programs, rather than consider a request from Bush for $193 billion in emergency funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, CongressDaily reports (Cohn, CongressDaily, 10/3). Bush has threatened to veto eight of the 12 appropriations bills (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 10/1).

According to Democratic leaders, they first plan to send Bush the $150 billion Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. Bush has proposed to reduce funds for programs covered under the bill by $3.6 billion from FY 2007, and Democrats have proposed to increase the funds by $7 billion to $9 billion. Senate Appropriations Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee Chair Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said that staff aides have begun "pre-conferencing" the bill with the expectation of passage as early as the week of Oct. 15. Harkin said that he would prefer to have an override vote after Bush vetoes the bill.

However, Democrats might consider "introducing Bush's Labor-HHS proposals ... to demonstrate that Bush's budget could not pass the House or Senate," CongressDaily reports. According to CongressDaily, Republicans "blasted the emerging strategy, in which they said Democrats were delaying war funding and holding back a bipartisan veterans' health measure to secure leverage for their domestic priorities" (Cohn, CongressDaily, 10/3).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.