Pelosi, Reid both say no to White House meeting on legislation to fund troops

Dems reject Bush offer on writing war bill
Pelosi, Reid both say no to White House meeting on legislation to fund troops

Edward Epstein, Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Staff Writers

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

(04-11) 04:00 PDT Washington -- President Bush, raising the political stakes in his fight with Congress over the war in Iraq, made Democratic leaders an offer they could and did refuse -- come to the White House to accept his demand for continued, unfettered funding of the war.

"We can discuss the way forward on a bill that is a clean bill: a bill that funds our troops without artificial timetables for withdrawal, and without handcuffing our generals on the ground," the president said of the fight over the emergency war spending legislation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking Tuesday at a press conference in San Francisco, forcefully rejected Bush's invitation -- as had Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada several hours earlier at a Capitol appearance.

"What the president invited us to do is to come to his office so that we could accept, without any discussion, the bill that he wants," Pelosi said. "That's not worthy of the concerns of the American people. And I join with Sen. Reid in rejecting an invitation of that kind.

"Leader Reid and I have long said to the president (that) we want to talk to you -- the American people want us to work together. They want us to fund the troops, they want us to wind down this war. And let's work together to do that," she said.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/04/11/MNGAVP6GJR1.DTL&type=politics

:woohoo:

:popcorn:

It would be giving the funds and including a plan to end the war that most people want. What would he do then? Would he have the nuggets to veto that?

him further into the corner....can you imagine what his next excuse will be if there is no pork?

the katrina funds seperately and watch Bush veto it.

addresses the Gulf Coast and it's rebuilding. Let the Repugs not support that...

The so-called "pork" that Bush continually refers to when discussing his hatred of and opposition to this supplemental spending bill is nothing other than a "red herring" and politically convenient reason to oppose this bill (after all, most people are against "wasteful" government spending). The REAL issue in this bill is, without a doubt, the proposed timetable. If the Democrats drop the timetable (which they most certainly should NOT!), I have little reason to doubt that Bush will gladly sign the bill whether it is loaded with "pork" or not. Me personally I don't really mind a few extra dollars going to help NO recover from Hurricane Katrina (and the result of Bush's subsequent neglect).

It sure gives them added strength.