When the House Democratic leadership introduced a supplemental appropriations bill the week of June 16, chock-full of popular spending measures, it ensured easy passage of the $257 billion package. The Democrats and President Bush can each claim they won items in the negotiation over the bill: the Democrats won increased spending on domestic programs; Bush was able to kill any requirements for withdrawal of soldiers from Iraq. Yet the bill remained controversial because the Democrats refused to include fiscally responsible measures or accede to the opinion of 63 percent of Americans that soldiers should return home within two years. The inclusion of a multitude of additional domestic spending items, including a pair of massively popular provisions to extend Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits and expand the GI bill, presented members of Congress and Bush with an irresistible basket of fiscal goodies. This spending would provide, among other things, relief for thousands of victims of natural disasters, maintain important Medicaid services, increase disaster protection for the citizens of New Orleans, and help feed victims of the global food crisis.

In addition, the bill excludes fiscally responsible offsets to new mandatory spending, a previous stumbling block to passage of the bill for almost all Senate Republicans.

The House spending package is a response to a war supplemental bill the Senate approved on May 22, and, like the Senate version, is composed of two amendments. The first amendment in the House bill is the version passed by the Senate in May and would provide $99.5 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the current fiscal year (FY) on Sept. 30 and $65.9 billion for the first half of FY 2009. This amendment was approved by the House 268-155. The second amendment, approved by the House 416-12, would reduce this funding by $3.6 billion and provide about $95.7 billion in non-defense domestic spending. While ultimate passage in the Senate is not certain, final congressional approval of the bill is likely to occur the week of June 23.

Construction of the final war supplemental bill has followed a strange and arduous path. After the Senate passed its version, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) anticipated that the Senate's war supplemental would likely be rejected by the House Blue Dog Coalition, because it omits a $54 billion tax increase to pay for the expanded GI bill. Hoyer also believed the chances of UI extension would fare better in a stand-alone bill (H.R. 5749). But when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported June 6 that the unemployment rate jumped by the largest monthly change in over 20 years (from 5.0 to 5.5 percent), House Democratic leadership realized that the UI bill would help passage of the war supplemental. House Blue Dogs, meanwhile, kept mum on demanding that this increase in mandatory spending be offset by either increased revenues or cuts to other mandatory programs.

To further increase bipartisan support of the war supplemental package, House Democratic and Republican leadership worked out a compromise by which the UI extension would be limited to 13 weeks; language to add an additional 13 weeks to workers living in "high-unemployment" states was dropped. House Democratic leadership apparently also struck a bargain with the Blue Dog Coalition on offsetting a GI bill expansion. When the House added the GI bill expansion to its initial war supplemental (approved by the House and sent to the Senate in May), Democratic leadership placated the Blue Dogs by including a $54 billion revenue raiser. No such offset was included in this latest package, yet Blue Dogs overwhelmingly approved the $71 billion in new mandatory spending.

When President Bush issued an approving Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) on the war supplemental on June 19, it became apparent the House would be voting on an incredibly popular bill. Earlier this year, the president made his position on including domestic spending in a war supplemental spending bill clear:

...I will not accept a supplemental over $108 billion or a supplemental that micro-manages the war, ties the hands of our commanders.

We will work with Congress on these veterans' benefits. I'm a firm believer that we ought to treat our veterans with respect. In the State of the Union I talked about the idea of transferring — a soldier being able to transfer educational benefits to a spouse or children. We've sent legislation to that effect up to Congress; we would like for them to move on it quickly. But the $108 billion is $108 billion.

Although previous SAPs (here and here) echoed this sentiment, the president's support for relief for victims of the Midwestern floods in this bill signaled a back peddling from opposition to the inclusion of domestic spending. His opposition was likely softened after the Senate voted by a veto-proof margin (75-22) to approve UI extension and GI bill expansion. And when the House overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the revised supplemental spending bill, it became clear that any veto would almost certainly be overridden.

The Democratic leadership has chosen the politically expedient path of crafting a war supplemental package that would provide vital support to the unemployed, reward the nation's military for their service, and cover a host of other emergency spending needs, all while not asking for the necessary sacrifice to pay for these priorities. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Hoyer, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) well understand that 60-vote majorities in the Senate for revenue increases or war-policy mandates are virtually impossible to achieve, let alone mustering two-thirds majorities in both chambers for veto overrides.