Today in Washington D. C. - Oct 30, 2007

From Senate sources: Roll Call reports this morning that Democrats are once again re-working their strategy on handling appropriations bills. Their latest plan seems to be to hold money for Defense and Veterans’ Affairs hostage to their social spending priorities by combining the Defense, Military Construction-VA, and Labor-HHS-Education bills into a mini omnibus, or “minibus.” According to CongressDaily, a minibus package would not include bridge funding for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anti-war liberals prevented Democrats from including such funding by threatening to oppose the bill if it included any more money for Iraq.

President Bush called out Congressional Democrats today on their historically awful record on spending bills. Not in the last 20 years has it been this long without Congress sending a single appropriations bill to the president. The president vowed he would veto a minibus and called for a clean veterans funding bill by Veterans’ Day. Sen. McConnell also called for clean Defense and veterans bills to be sent to the White House by then in a floor speech this morning.

Democrats also continue to stall on the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey to be attorney general. The Sen. Judiciary Comm. has yet to vote on sending his nomination to the full Senate. Democrats are demanding Mukasey answer still more questions; todate, they’ve asked for answers to over 495 questions in writing. Democrat presidential candidates Chris Dodd and Barack Obama have now said they will oppose Mukasey. Such moves do little to help cooperation in a Congress The Politico reports is “at war over everything.”

On the Floor: - Senate will resume consideration of the Amtrak reauthorization bill (S. 294) - $11.4 billion for Amtrak over six years, mandate a strategic overhaul of Amtrak, and direct the government to refinance Amtrak’s $3 billion debt. Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) said he expects work on the bill to be finished today.
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed this morning to complete work on the House’s new SCHIP bill later this week, yet again threatening a weekend session.

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