Recordpub.com - OUR VIEW: A real fight: Dems, Bush at odds over add-ons in measure to provide funding for war

Congressional Democrats are heading toward another confrontation with President Bush and this time they're hoping they might finally win one. Don't bet on it.
Bush sent to Congress a request for $108 billion to continue fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for this current year. He said he would veto any bill that exceeded his spending request, contained a timetable for pulling out of Iraq or contained new domestic spending programs.
The war funding measure, as it stands, contains all three of those veto-provoking elements.
It calls for $178 billion in spending, although some Republicans say the final tab is more like $200 billion. It does contain additional spending to continue fighting the wars in the first few months of 2009, a provision Bush might sit still for.
But it calls for $16 billion in extended unemployment benefits for workers who have exhausted theirs and it also calls for doubling of college aid for veterans. The Democrats are betting that Bush will shy away from being seen to stiff both veterans and the unemployed.
The bill also calls for a significant withdrawal of U.S. troops by December 2009. This would give antiwar Democrats a chance to go on the record, but the Senate Republicans are likely to block the timetable before it gets to Bush.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pulled the bill from the schedule Wednesday night after conservative-to-moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats revolted over Democratic leaders' insistence on including the unrelated provision to sharply increase education benefits for veterans under the GI Bill.
The new GI Bill " designed to give Iraq war veterans enough help to finance a four-year stint at a public college " would cost $51 billion over 10 years. It runs afoul of a rule designed to prevent new benefit programs from causing the deficit to spiral.
The Democratic rebels are the House's top supporters of "pay as you go" budget rules that require that new benefit programs be financed with offsetting spending cuts or new taxes so as not to cause the budget deficit to increase.
All this spending is basically borrowed money; the cost goes straight to the deficit, which majority Democrats " like the Republicans in power before them " apparently have no problem ignoring.
This should be the last war-funding bill of Bush's presidency. It promises to be a real fight.