The Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation ought to be happy. The coverage of the House budget resolution more or less includes their talking points about how "spending is the problem" with the federal budget. What's more, these ideas are not attributed; they're just presented as facts that the reporters decided, for an unnamed reason, to add to these stories.

THe New York Times:

Indeed, total government spending has climbed far faster under Mr. Bush than it did under President Bill Clinton, while tax revenue has climbed far more slowly. All told, federal debt has grown by almost $4 trillion since Mr. Bush took office.

Given this uncertainty, Democrats argue their more incremental approach is the better course to restore more discipline. But they have made little attempt to address the rising costs of benefit programs, and much rests on Congress's ability to stay focused on deficit reduction.

Neither of these passages seem to make factual errors. Yes, spending has exceeded revenues- that's called a running a deficit (Someone explain to me how else you run a deficit, I'm curious). And no, the Democrats haven't made an attempt to address "benefit program" costs, which I'm assuming is a clever new way to lump together the problems in Medicare and Medicaid with Social Security and perhaps all other domestic aid programs. Why aren't the reporters more specific about what type of spending they're talking about?

And what exactly rests on Congress's ability to reduce the deficit? Cutting "benefit programs," you know, isn't the only way to reduce the deficit, though that's pretty much how it's framed here.

These reporters are doing Cato and Heritage's work for them. Who do these reporters work for- the public or radically conservative policy shops?

The Senate passed a $122 billion supplemental spending bill this afternoon by 51-47; it was a party-line vote, with all Democrats in favor and all GOP Senators opposed, except for Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Gordon Smith (R-OR), who supported the measure.

The House passed a similar but slight larger supplemental package last week. The two bills provide about $100 billion in spending for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the remainder on domestic needs -- the largest supplemental appropriations bills ever passed by their respective chambers. Last week and then again this week, President Bush issued successive veto threats against the House and Senate bills, citing "the excessive and extraneous non-emergency spending," presumably referring only to the domestic spending provisions.

Using specific target dates and stating those dates as a "deadline" (in the House's version) and a "goal" (in the Senate's), both houses of Congress have now called -- over the loud objections of the commander-in-chief expressed in his veto threats -- for complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from a war that has lasted longer than World War II and has been this nation's most expensive ever. The Senate bill further mandates that troop withdrawal commence within four months of enactment.

The Senate has appointed conferees but the House hasn't, so the conference won't begin until mid-April. The war funding, which the President says the troops must have by the end of April, is poised in limbo, with no sign that either side is prepared to reverse positions that are now a matter of record.

While reestablishing a commitment to paying for changes to mandatory spending and taxes in the budget, the Democratic Leadership plan still boosts discretionary spending levels for under funded and neglected national priorities and investments, such as Head Start, child care, and housing. The Democrats' budget would allow about $25 billion more in discretionary spending in 2008 than President Bush has requested, and about $7 billion more than the Senate-adopted plan. In addition, like the Senate plan, the House budget would add additional funds (and deficit-neutral offsets) for mandatory nutrition and health care programs.

While this is only a first step in repairing some of the damage done to important priorities in the federal budget over the past six years and before, it seems the Democrats have used a recipe that is neither too hot nor too cold, but just about right.

The House just passed the FY07 supplemental funding bill that's mostly for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The bill contains conditions and a timetable for withdrawing most troops from Iraq.

The House of Representatives today passed a $124 billion emergency spending bill that sets binding benchmarks for progress in Iraq, establishes tough readiness standards for deploying U.S. troops abroad and requires the withdrawal of American combat forces from Iraq by the end of August 2008.

The bill promptly drew a veto threat from President Bush.

The House is heading for a floor vote, probably late this Thursday, March 22, on the now-$124.1 billion supplemental appropriations package -- the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, and Iraq Accountability Act. At this point, it is seen as a vehicle for a Democratic message regarding withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq as much as a spending bill providing a record $100 billion in supplemental war funds. As the time draws nigh, we thought these resources would be helpful:

• Where the Vote Count Stands in the House:
  Iraq vote hangs by thread
  
• The Administration's Views and Veto Threat:
  Statement of Administration Position
  
• The Itemized Bill -- What's in It Now?:
  President's Revised Request vs. Committee-Reported Bill
  
• Background Brief:
  Supplemental Appropriations

Robert Novak reports today that the OMB database on earmarks is intentionally incomplete- orders came from the White House to not finish it, for fear of offending earmark beneficiaries.

The committee rejected a number of amendments, including one from Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) to create a 60-vote point of order against any budget resolution that failed to reach balance, excluding Social Security funds, in five years. By excluding Social Security funds, the deficit would be significantly higher than the current level and the budget would be that much more difficult to balance. Funny that Bunning did not advocate for using this larger deficit figure when the Republicans controled the Senate.

The panel also rejected an amendment by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) to instruct the Finance Committee to find $33.8 billion in savings over five years, with the intent that the reductions come from putting in place a proposal by President Bush to reduce reimbursements to Medicare providers.

Your voice is needed now to support a budget with the right priorities for all Americans. The ECAP coalition (read this Watcher article for more on ECAP) is mobilizing to promote a FY08 budget resolution that doesn't allow tax cuts for the wealthy and that makes enough room to fund programs for children, workers, education, and nutrition and housing issues.

Let your representative know what you think about these programs and policies. They need to hear that their constituents will support them if they make the right decisions on the budget.

Dial (toll-free) 1-800-459-1887 to reach your representative.

ECAP is trying to focus its support for certain programs on different days. The schedule is as follows (click on the links for more information on the programs at issue):

• Thursday, March 15 — Children and Youth Issues
  
  
• Friday, March 16 -- Worker's Issues
  
  
• Monday, March 19 — Education Issues
  
  
• Tuesday, March 20 — Nutrition and Housing Issues
  
  

Congress and President Bush have been taking turns adding to what what started out a $99.6 billion supplemental appropriations package. This weekend, Bush formally requested an additional $6.3 billion in spending (mostly for 4,400 new troops to be deployed in the "surge"). This amount, C-Span reports, Bush wants "offset by cuts ... from domestic appropriations made in the fiscal 2007 continuing resolution."

Meanwhile, Congress has added about $15 billion for hurricane and agriculture-disaster relief, S-CHIP, materials for combat troops, and other sweeteners. The current House bill also includes Iraqi war conditions and a troop withdrawal timetable -- grounds for a veto, the White House warns. The president's proposed offsets, domestic program cuts, mostly in education, Amtrak and Community Development Block Grants, have previously been rejected by Democratic appropriators.

Each successive addition makes the bill a harder sell in Congress or veto-bait for the White House. As of today, the bill totals $124.1 billion, making it the largest supplemental appropriations bill of all time. The House Appropriations Committee plans to mark up the bill Thursday.

Bizarre as it might seem, the Wall Street Journal is reporting "a surprising addition [to the Iraq supplemental bill] by the Democratic leadership: a minimum wage increase."

• first, the Democratic leadership must be despairing that House liberals aren't seeing enough anti-war ammunition in the supplemental to support it
• second, leadership impatience with the minimum wage tax package logjam may have reached the point where it simply wants to cut the gordian knot
• third, maybe the view is that such a bill can clear the Senate, where only six additional votes on top of the 54 who voted for a clean minimum wage bill
• fourth, and that Bush can't possibly veto this package, despite its lack of small business emoluments?

War funding plus domestic bennies plus minimum wage -- could be a winning Democratic version of the Trifecta...

Fred Kagan of Slate has a good article on the budget woes that very likely contributed to the situation at Walter Reed and all across the military. His basic point: the discretionary budget for veteran's health benefits has not been keeping up with need (sound familiar?).

One quibble: Kagan makes the administrators at Veterans Affairs and the Army seem responsible for the inadequate budget requests. I find this highly unlikely. All agencies are required to submit their budget requests to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB- our namesake) prior to being released to Congress. It is OMB that ultimately decides how much money these agencies request.

And who does OMB answer to? The President. That's where the buck should stop.

Coming to a chamber floor near you! CQ($):

The House Appropriations Committee has set a "target date" of March 7 to mark up the fiscal 2007 supplemental measure, Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., the committee chairman, said Wednesday. The goal is to bring the bill to the floor the following week.

The Senate Appropriations Committee intends to mark up its own version of the bill March 20, according to its chairman, Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he would like to have the bill on the floor the last week of March.

UPDATE: Via CQ($) - House consideration of the supplemental is expected to be March 8