House Passes Spending Bill
Measure Includes Pentagon Budget, Aid to Automakers

By Lyndsey Layton and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 25, 2008

The House overwhelmingly approved a resolution yesterday to continue funding the federal government until March 6, a stopgap measure needed to avert a government shutdown because Congress has not approved the 12 appropriations bills pending on Capitol Hill.

The measure, passed 370 to 58, includes provisions to lend as much as $25 billion to help the U.S. auto industry build more fuel-efficient vehicles; $2.5 billion more than was spent in 2008 for home heating assistance for the poor; additional money for Pell Grant tuition assistance for low-income students and money for the 2010 census, among many other measures.

The resolution will fund most of the government at fiscal 2008 levels but includes three fiscal 2009 appropriations bills totaling $630 billion for Defense, Homeland Security and military construction/Veterans Affairs. Those measures devote $487.7 billion to defense, $39.98 billion for homeland security, and $72.9 billion for military base construction and veterans' health care.

The bill does not extend the moratorium on oil drilling off the East and West coasts that is set to expire Tuesday. Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said a new drilling plan that Democrats had hoped to include in the spending resolution was withdrawn after a veto threat from President Bush.

Passage of the resolution is essential if Congress is to adjourn after this week to allow members to return home for the fall campaign. The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure later this week.

Still, some Republicans balked at the process.

"If you are like me, you have a great many questions about what is actually included in this package," said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), the ranking minority member of the House Appropriations committee. "The simple truth is, very few people have any idea what's in it."

Democratic leaders said they were postponing votes on most spending bills until next year, because Bush wanted Congress to cut $14 billion from domestic programs, including cancer research, student aid and home heating assistance, among others.

"The president made a federal case over our desire to spend $14 billion on our own people and then, in last two weeks, he proposes we spend 50 times that much on a bailout of the banking industry," Obey said.

He said Democrats were "kicking the can" into the next year in the hope that the next president will support their budget priorities. "I make no apology whatsoever for doing that," Obey said. "I think it is the right thing to do and the moral thing to do."

Separately, the House yesterday passed a 2009 defense authorization bill that continues to expand the Pentagon's provision of military and nonmilitary assistance to foreign countries. The measure also drops language that would have banned contractors from carrying out interrogations of detainees and required congressional approval of any agreement with Baghdad governing U.S. troops in Iraq.

The House language was worked out in negotiations with Senate leaders and is expected to be approved by the full Senate and sent to Bush for his signature.

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said yesterday that the measure approved by the House establishes "new conflict-of-interest requirements for contractors" and prohibits the use of U.S. funds for new large-scale infrastructure projects in Iraq.

The provisions that prohibited U.S. detainees from being questioned by private interrogators and required a congressional vote on any pact with Iraq were dropped because of a threatened presidential veto.

The bill also expands to $350 million the amount the Defense Department is authorized to spend on training and equipping foreign coalition partners. It also increases another Defense program that channels Pentagon funds through the State Department for security and stabilization efforts, including reconstruction aid to the Republic of Georgia.

The Defense Department would have $35 million for fellowships to combat terrorism, a sum larger than the State Department's budget for the Fulbright program.