WASHINGTON - Ending dual spending battles with President Bush, the Democratic-controlled Congress passed a $555 billion bill Wednesday that funds the Iraq war well into next year and covers government agencies.
Bush was expected soon to sign the measure, which includes $70 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, after winning concessions from Democrats on Iraq policy and the budget.
The bill, sent to the president after a 272-142 vote, funds 14 Cabinet departments and foreign aid for the budget year that began Oct. 1.
Bush and his Senate GOP allies forced the Iraq money upon anti-war Democrats as the price for permitting the year-end budget deal to pass and be signed. Seventy-eight House Democrats voted for the Iraq money, eager to avoid being seen as not supporting troops in harm's way. But 141 Democrats voted against it.
"This is a blank check," complained Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. "The new money in this bill represents one cave-in too many. It is an endorsement of George Bush's policy of endless war."
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said this week that the $70 billion for the wars means Democrats will not see a need to revisit the issue until May or June.
Democrats tried to use war spending legislation to force a change in Bush's Iraq policy, chiefly by setting a withdrawal goal with dates such as Dec. 15, 2009. But Bush and Republicans held a powerful hand. They knew Democrats would not let money lapse for troops overseas. That allowed a Bush veto in May and GOP stalling tactics to determine the outcome.
On the domestic budget, Bush's GOP allies were divided over whether the overall spending bill was a victory for their party in the long fight with Democrats over agency budgets.
Conservatives and outside groups such as the Club for Growth, which seeks to elect lawmakers opposed to tax and spending increases, criticized the bill for having about $28 billion in domestic spending that topped Bush's budget and was paid for by a combination of "emergency" spending, transfers from the defense budget and other maneuvers.
Republican leaders acknowledged some excesses. But they said the measure could have cost a lot more if the GOP and the White House had not stood firm against more than $20 billion in additional domestic spending included in Democratic spending bills that passed last summer.
"The fact is we got the number down to the baseline," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Boehner supported moves that effectively broke Bush's budget cap to provide record budget increases for veterans and to build a fence and provide additional security along the U.S.-Mexico border.
But the amount of money at stake was relatively small in the context of an almost $3 trillion federal budget. That was especially true when compared with the more than $50 billion increase Bush sought for the Pentagon's regular budget; his 12 percent requested increase for foreign aid; and his almost $200 billion request for one year's worth of military and diplomatic activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While disappointed on the Iraq money, Democrats said the spending bill smoothed the rough edges of the president's February budget plan. That proposal had sought below-inflation increases for most domestic programs and contained numerous cuts and program eliminations.
For Democrats, just finishing the budget ended up as the driving goal. They wanted to avoid the humiliation of failing to enact the spending bills after criticizing then-majority Republicans for not doing so last year.
The spending legislation affects virtually every part of the government other than the Defense Department's core programs. It would pay for food and toy safety inspections, NASA, the FBI, the Coast Guard, education, health research and national park operations, among many programs.
It also contains about 9,000 pet projects sought by lawmakers, at a cost of more than $7 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based group that fights such projects. Democrats said the cost of earmarks was down more than 40 percent from 2006 levels and they touted disclosure rules that added greater transparency to the much-maligned earmarking process.
The bill would raise the pay of federal civilian workers by 3.5 percent, extend farm subsidies the food stamp program until March 15 and eliminated money for a next generation nuclear warhead. It also would keep banks from entering the real estate business.
But the White House succeeded in using veto threats to rid the bill of more contentious items such as ending a ban on U.S. aid to overseas family planning groups that perform abortions and easing financing of agricultural and medical sales to Cuba.
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