Hill, White House Draw Battle Lines

Post-Recess Fights on Key Issues Are Brewing

As lawmakers head for a month-long recess tomorrow, Congress and the White House are embroiled in confrontations on multiple fronts, signaling the potential for widespread gridlock when they return in September on the war, the budget and issues such as health care and education.

Despite promises of bipartisanship, both sides are drawing sharp lines over big bills involving farm policy, energy and domestic spending. Last night, the Senate, with bipartisan support, approved a $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, shrugging aside a veto threat from President Bush. With 18 Republicans voting against the president, the 68 to 31 vote provided a veto-proof majority. On an 83 to 14 vote, the Senate also sent Bush a new ethics bill that is tough on lobbyists but weaker on one of the president's top priorities, exposing pork-barrel spending.

The House approved yesterday the latest Iraq bill to come under a veto threat, a measure requiring rests for combat troops of at least the length of their previous deployment before they are sent back into battle. The 229 to 194 vote included six Republicans in the majority. Three other wavering Republicans voted present.

To be sure, Democratic leaders have compromised, even on core party issues such as labor organizing and wiretapping. They dropped the most confrontational provisions from a major homeland security bill that Bush is expected to sign today, eliminating a measure to allow airport screeners to unionize. And they are cooperating with the administration on a last-minute update of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act over the objections of liberal senators such as Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.).

But, overall, messages from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have largely been tough and uncompromising.

Bush taunted Democrats yesterday for not passing the annual spending bills, even though the next fiscal year will not begin until October. He hosted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her husband at a private dinner at the White House on Tuesday, yet Bush took a veiled shot at her in the Rose Garden yesterday over her comment this week that the Democrats' proposal to spend $22 billion more on domestic programs than what the White House wants amounts to a "very small difference."

"Only in Washington can $22 billion be called a very small difference," Bush said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) responded, "He must be in the Twilight Zone."

It is not just Democrats who are in a fighting mood over the president's fiscal posture. A new veto threat for a $21 billion water projects bill -- 20 percent of which would be used to rebuild Louisiana -- prompted Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) to vow to "work enthusiastically" for a veto override.

"I'm afraid the promise the president made to the nation in Jackson Square [to rebuild New Orleans] comes across as hollow today," Vitter said this week.

With other key elements of their agenda blocked, Bush and his advisers believe they can shore up their poor standing in public approval polls by claiming the mantle of fiscal conservatism, while Democrats are practically daring the president to veto measures that would expand what they consider to be popular government initiatives.

Even the catastrophic bridge collapse in Minnesota gave Democratic leaders an opening to confront Bush on his fiscal austerity. They challenged the president yesterday to launch a major initiative to address the nation's aging infrastructure, including bridges, dams and sewer systems.