On March 19, the Bush administration said it would veto a supplemental appropriations bill being readied for a House vote expected to come as soon as March 22. The White House indicated that the president opposes language that would require troop withdrawal from Iraq as well as "excessive and extraneous non-emergency spending". The supplemental appropriations bill, at $124 billion, will be the largest supplemental bill ever considered by a house of Congress and has sweeteners in it to offset a tough vote on withdrawing troops from Iraq. The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider its own version of the supplemental on March 22. As introduced in early March, the House bill mirrored President Bush's request for $99.6 billion in appropriations for ongoing military operations, equipment for American forces, and training and equipment of Afghan and Iraqi forces. But as the bill got caught up in internal House conflicts regarding Iraq war policy, leadership sought to ease its passage with tradeoffs that certain Members wanted, and it grew in size. On March 15, the House Appropriations Committee approved the emergency supplemental appropriations bill, but by then it had grown to $124 billion. A week before the Committee vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), seeking to bolster the bill's chances, announced that the minimum wage bill passed by the House in January would be added to the supplemental. The wage measure consists of a $2.10 increase in the federal minimum hourly wage, from $5.15 to $7.25, over two years and a package of small business tax breaks that would cost $1.3 billion over five years. Although the minimum wage is a supplemental-sweetener, its inclusion is highly unorthodox in its timing: the Senate has passed a much-larger $8.3 billion set of tax breaks and the two tax packages are awaiting conference. GOP Senators objected strenuously to including this minimum wage sweetener. Senate Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley (R-IA) told Congressional Quarterly [subscription], "Speaker Pelosi ought to know, there's another house. We are a bicameral Congress.... And there are things like the Senate Finance Committee. This is an intrusion on the prerogatives of the tax-writing committees." But it may have broken the logjam: on March 19, Grassley announced that he was dropping demands for a pre-conference agreement with House Ways and Means chair Charles Rangel (D-NY) on the wage bill's tax packages. Congress added to the president's supplemental request about $20 billion in domestic spending, including:

• nearly $2.5 billion for Gulf Coast recovery
• $3.7 billion for agriculture disaster relief in the Midwest and California
• $750 million for the State Children's Health Care Insurance Program
• $400 million low-income energy assistance
• $400 million for timber-dependent communities in the Pacific Northwest

Other programs that received additional funds involve international food assistance, foreign aid, pandemic flu prevention, and wildfire suppression. Other late additions to the supplemental crack down on wasteful government contracting. The bill adds millions to the budgets of multiple Inspectors General to investigate contacts related to the Gulf Coast recovery. It also withholds funds from the Defense Department until it produces a report on contractors involved in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the supplemental would require that the agencies that rely heavily on contractors develop and implement a plan to minimize wasteful contracts. The House recently passed a similar provision in H.R. 1362. The president later added requests of $3 billion for the Base Relocation And Closure (BRAC) program and another $3 billion for troop increases. Notwithstanding these additions being added, the president made it abundantly clear that he intends to veto the House bill. A key reason for the threatened veto is the controversial provision that would determine the length of the war in Iraq. The supplemental dictates that major combat operations would end, at the latest, by September 2008, and by January 2008 at the earliest. When the war would end is dependent on benchmarks specified in the bill. The supplemental first requires that the president submit to Congress reports on the war in Iraq by July 1 and Oct. 1, 2007. In the first report, the president must certify whether or not the war in Iraq has made progress toward achieving a host of specified goals; in the second report, the president must certify whether or not these goals have been achieved. Among these goals are sectarian reconciliation, an improved security situation and progress on economic reconstruction. If the president reports that progress has been insufficient or that the goals have not been met, or if the president fails to issue either report, the Department of Defense would have 180 days to withdraw most military forces from Iraq. Even if the president reports that the specified goals have been accomplished, the bill requires that all armed forces begin redeployment from Iraq by March 1, 2008. American troops, with some exceptions, would have to leave Iraq by September 2008. These provisions would be the first to restrict the duration of the Iraq war. But, due to certain exceptions and omissions, the president would still retain a great deal of authority over the course and length of the war. First, the president would have complete discretion over what constitutes a satisfactory report on conditions in Iraq. The bill does not provide criteria by which Congress could judge the president's reports, nor does it not seem to give Congress the power to challenge the president's report. Furthermore, the deadline for the commencement of the latest troop withdrawal — March 1, 2008 — occurs outside of the time-span for which this appropriations bill will be providing funding. Congress must pass another appropriations bill to continue the war effort in FY 2008, which could contain language that could remove or change this deadline. And the bill, in its current form, does not specify what consequences would apply if the Department of Defense does not comply with the imposed deadline, though non-compliance would seem be a clear violation of the law. The bill also mandates that troops being sent to Iraq meet readiness standards, though the president may waive these restrictions if he provides Congress with a justification. President Bush issued a veto threat from Air Force One as soon as news reports were out that the Democrats were adding timetables and conditions to the bill. That gave GOP House members cover to vote against it; indeed, every Republican on Appropriations opposed it. Democratic defections on the floor are also feared — estimates are in the 12-15 vote range. The Democrats' majority in the House is 15 votes. But the supplemental could well attract some scattered GOP votes. There is a broad consensus that this is must-pass legislation — it provides vital troop support, including no less than $10 billion for body armor — but may not succeed in its current form.