Will it be deal or no deal on spending bills?

Will it be deal or no deal on spending bills?
Congress prepares two options simultaneously: a deal for the president and a veto override.
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the November 13, 2007 edition

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Reporter Gail Chaddock discusses how Congressional gridlock is proving to be a potent weapon against earmarks.

Washington - With its approval ratings dropping into single digits, Congress heads into a wall of presidential veto threats this week, and neither side appears near the blinking point.

The standoff covers nearly all the spending bills for fiscal year 2008, as well as $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that Democrats plan to unveil this week.

President Bush has signed just five vetoes during his presidency. Last week, Congress easily overturned one of them: a $23.2 billion bill to authorize new water projects, including help for the Gulf Coast, still recovering from hurricane Katrina.

But Democrats aren't expecting that level of Republican support in the spending battles to come, which are already breaking down along partisan lines.

"The water bill is the exception. The other vetoes will be sustained," says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "Even in a lame-duck presidency, the veto power is one of the most influential any president has – that and war-making. This president is using both to the hilt to maintain his authority to the last day."

Democrats' strategy

Seven weeks into the new fiscal year, Democrats who control Congress are developing two options to get through the spending season: packaging a deal that Mr. Bush cannot refuse – or leveraging the votes needed to override his veto.

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1113/p03s03-uspo.html