The showdown in D.C. over Iraq war funding

In the end, Bush will get the $100-billion plus he has requested from Congress, key Democrats say.

from the April 16, 2007 edition

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Washington - In the great showdown between the White House and congressional Democrats over war funding, it may be all over but the shouting.

Key Democrats – such as Senate Armed Services chair Carl Levin (D) of Michigan – have already made clear that President Bush will get his $100 billion-plus to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

Still, the usual Kabuki theater of antagonistic congressional-presidential relations is likely to play out: This week, the Democrat-controlled House and Senate are expected to negotiate a final bill on war funding that would set a timetable for troop withdrawal. On Wednesday, the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate will meet with Mr. Bush at the White House, where they will disagree on the timetable issue. Bush will veto Congress's bill. Then, lacking enough votes to override the veto, Congress will go back and pass a funding measure that the president is willing to sign.

Hard-line antiwar Democrats will be unhappy, but the party will have avoided the risk of being portrayed as harming US troops on the ground. And Democrats know that public opinion plays to their advantage; a majority of Americans favor a timetable for withdrawal. So even if the Democrats lose the current battle over the funding bill, they know the larger climate works in their favor.

"A lot of Americans would be happy if they learned that American troops would be leaving Iraq at a date certain," says Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif.

Lurking behind the latest battle between the White House and Congress is the memory of the 21-day government shutdown of 1995, when the Republican Congress and Democratic president, Bill Clinton, reached an impasse over the budget. Republicans, newly emboldened by their 1994 takeover of Congress, took the fight to President Clinton, who refused to back down. Ultimately, the public blamed the Republicans for the shutdown, which disrupted some government services.

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