Kautzman’s AP GO PO Blog

Democrats stymied again on withdrawal

Shailagh Murray
Washington Post
November 17, 2007

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans Friday blocked the latest effort by Democrats to end the Iraq war, rejecting a $50 billion military funding package that would have required President Bush to begin withdrawing troops.

The 53 to 45 tally fell seven votes short of the 60 needed and signaled that the contours of the war debate, now nearing its one-year anniversary, have barely changed. An alternative GOP proposal, which would have provided $70 billion with no strings attached, failed 53 to 45, falling 15 votes short.

The Democratic version was approved by the House earlier this week. It would have required President Bush to start a phased redeployment of U.S. forces within 30 days of enactment, while shifting the military role in Iraq to specific missions. Those include protecting U. S. diplomatic facilities, assisting Iraqi security forces and engaging in targeted counterterrorism operations. It set a Dec. 15, 2008, goal for completing the process.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he may bring the Democratic bill back to the floor in December. He and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have agreed that Bush will not receive more war funding this year unless he accepts Democratic withdrawal terms.

That’s out of the question, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto, who dismissed the Democratic vote as a political stunt.

“Once again, they tried to pass a bill that provides incremental funding, tries to micromanage the war from the halls of Congress,” said Fratto. Democrats “know that such a bill will be vetoed, should it ever come to the president’s desk.”

In May, Bush vetoed an Iraq spending bill that contained Democratic withdrawal conditions, and Congress backed off. Reid and Pelosi said they would not consider a new approach to the funding request until January. In the meantime, they said, the Pentagon could draw from its $471 billion annual budget to cover war expenses.

Republicans said they expect to win the funding showdown eventually – just as they did this summer, owing to the mathematical reality of the Democrats’ tiny 51 to 49 majority in the Senate.

Republicans accused of being obstructionist

Michael Doyle
McClatchy
November 17, 2007

WASHINGTON – Forget about a farm bill, for now.

An utterly stymied Senate on Friday failed to muster the votes needed to consider a $286 billion farm bill, making it much more likely that the package will get postponed into 2008.

The delay alarms fruit and vegetable growers, who seek a record increase in federal spending.

Farm-state senators aren’t too happy, either.

“It may slip into next year; I don’t know,” conceded Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, mustered 55 votes to break a filibuster. He needed 60. Partisanship prevailed, as every Democrat voted to proceed and all 42 votes to block the bill came from Republicans.

The 55-42 filibuster vote Friday capped 10 days of inaction, during which time the farm bill remained inert on the Senate floor. Although 260-plus amendments have been drafted, many unrelated to farm policy, senators remain split over substance, process and politics.

The Senate now embarks on a two-week Thanksgiving vacation, during which time farm organizations will pressure GOP lawmakers. If motivated, Harkin insisted, Senate leaders still could solve their problems in early December and start negotiations with the House of Representatives before Christmas.

“We just want them to get on with it,” said Jack King, the manager of national affairs for the California Farm Bureau Federation. “Why wait?”

The Californians have joined with growers in Florida, Michigan, Washington and other specialty-crop states to promote increased spending on fruits and vegetables. A House farm bill approved in late July offers $1.7 billion for specialty crops.

The Senate proposal offers $2 billion for specialty crops, with about half of the total paying for school snack and lunch purchases. Both the House and Senate legislation would provide four or five times the level of specialty-crop funding included in the current farm bill, which expires this year.

If agreement cannot be reached on a new bill, Congress could extend the current legislation. But that would postpone indefinitely the gains for farmers, food stamp recipients and rural communities contained in the new legislation.

“If we have a continuation of the current farm bill, we have no provisions for half of the crops in the country, the fruits and vegetables,” warned Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

Well over half of the farm bill’s total spending goes toward food-stamp and nutrition programs. Both House and Senate bills largely continue traditional subsidies for crops, including cotton, rice, wheat and corn, though with some modifications.

Many Republicans like the underlying farm bill, which won unanimous approval from the 21-member Senate Agriculture Committee. Nonetheless, they kept it bottled up Friday out of solidarity with other GOP colleagues who want to offer amendments on hot-button political issues. One potential amendment, for instance, would bar illegal immigrants from obtaining driver’s licenses.

Another potential amendment would bar crop subsidies to residents of San Francisco; New Haven, Conn.; and other self-designated “sanctuary” cities that harbor illegal immigrants. Other proposals range from cutting estate taxes to granting firefighters collective bargaining rights.

Senate Democratic leaders want limited amendments, all germane to agriculture. In part, this keeps manageable a bill that already spans 1,600 pages and avoids amendments primarily designed to force politically awkward votes.

“If you want to offer this on some other bill, on an immigration bill, fine,” Harkin said. “But not on the farm bill.”

Stalling the farm bill also can serve some political purposes. Stabenow charged Republicans with pursuing a “strategy to block us from achieving anything,” while Harkin contended that the White House’s Capitol Hill allies want to protect the president from making a politically sensitive veto.

White House officials say the Senate bill is packed with taxes and “budget gimmicks,” and they want changes, including stricter limits on which farmers get subsidies. The Senate bill, for instance, prohibits subsidies to farmers with gross annual incomes over $750,000. The White House wants this cut to $200,000.

“To put it simply, I believe our farmers and ranchers deserve and need something better,” Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner said this week.

Peter Baker
Washington Post
November 17, 2007

WASHINGTON – Maybe he’ll bring the slide show.

Former Vice President Al Gore plans to return to the White House after Thanksgiving, apparently for the first time since leaving office, to be honored by the man who beat him seven years ago.

President Bush will host five American winners of this year’s Nobel Prizes in the Oval Office on Nov. 26, including the winner of the Peace Prize, who fell 538 votes short of hosting the event himself. No word on whether the Supreme Court will be on hand to mediate in case of trouble.

The president regularly invites Nobel laureates for a handshake and photograph and decided this year would be no different, even if they include his vanquished rival from 2000. The Gore camp said the White House went out of its way to accommodate the former vice president’s schedule, even moving the event when there was a conflict with the first proposed date. Bush telephoned Gore on Friday to finalize the arrangements.

“The president wanted to call him and lock that in and make sure he’s going to be able to come,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. “He also offered his congratulations and said he looked forward to having him here.”

A Gore adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged the awkward nature of the event. “It’s unusual, that’s for sure,” he said. “But the conversations were good, and the White House has been very gracious about it.”

The situation is not entirely unprecedented. Bush invited Jimmy Carter to the White House to mark his Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, even though the former president had been lambasting the march to war in Iraq.

President Bill Clinton honored defeated challenger Bob Dole with the Presidential Medal of Freedom three days before taking the oath of office for the second time in January 1997.

But Bush and Gore, while together at events such as the opening of Clinton’s library in 2004 and Gerald Ford’s funeral last year, have never reconciled the bitterness from their showdown, and the adviser believes that Gore has not been back to the White House since leaving as vice president.

Gore has been a vocal critic of Bush’s policies, while the president has been dismissive of his former opponent’s work against global warming. Asked once whether he would see Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Bush had a curt response: “Doubt it.”

This could be the chance to change that. “I’m sure he would love to give the slide show to the president,” the Gore adviser said.