Vote on war funding delayed

WASHINGTON — Protests from moderate Democrats and a revolt by opposition Republicans prompted House Democratic leaders Wednesday night to delay a planned vote on a $195 billion measure to pay for the war in Iraq and provide education help to veterans as well as relief for the jobless.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., promised to deal with the concerns of some of her more conservative members, who were upset that the war funding bill is carrying new benefit programs — especially a boost in GI education benefits — without paying for them with offsetting cuts to other programs.

At the same time, Republicans are up in arms that they have been excluded from opportunities to participate in the crafting of the measure, and in response they have forced dozens of procedural votes over the past three days in protest. A vote on the funding bill had initially been planned for today.

"They bypassed the (Appropriations) committee. They refused to allow us to have any amendments," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "And so the voices of half the American people are not allowed to be heard on the House floor."

Pelosi told reporters that the huge war funding bill would be changed to bring so-called Blue Dog Democrats on board.

"Their concerns are very legitimate," Pelosi told reporters Wednesday. "They must be addressed."

Amid the tumult, Republicans acknowledged that Pelosi had devised a strategy to try to jam the bill past Republicans and President Bush in a form that he might have to sign.

Pelosi's strategy relies on keeping the measure free of many domestic add-ons that have provoked Bush veto threats — except for a politically popular extension of unemployment benefits and an even more popular increase in education benefits for troops returning from Iraq.

Republicans acknowledged privately that Pelosi's plan to send Bush a bill clean of too many Democratic add-ons — and ultimately shorn of language setting a nonbinding timeline to remove combat troops from Iraq — would be difficult for Bush to stop.

"That's going to be really hard for the White House to push back on," said a former White House aide.

Meanwhile, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and fellow Democrats on the panel revealed a far more ambitious list of domestic add-ons to the war funding measure.