US House Could Strip Jobless Insur Extension From War Bill
Wednesday June 4th, 2008 / 23h31
By Corey Boles and Patrick Yoest Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. House Democratic leadership is considering stripping out additional domestic funding of a bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including an extension of unemployment insurance benefits. In the latest twist in the debate between Congress and the Bush administration about how best to fund the wars into 2009, House Democrats are trying to remove as much additional spending as possible in order to increase the bill's chances of success. The Senate sent a version of the funding legislation back to the House, with a lengthy package of domestic and foreign aid spending initiatives attached. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Wednesday that the bill he would bring to the floor for another vote would most likely not include the unemployment benefit extension, even though he had been a champion of the measure only weeks earlier. The only additional spending likely to still be included in the war funding bill would be a popular measure to pay for extended college benefits for military veterans. A new tax on wealthy Americans to pay for the education benefits, which had been added to the bill by House lawmakers, and then removed in the Senate, wouldn't be reinstated, said Hoyer. "If we're not paying for the war, and the wounded warriors are part of the war, then they ought to be treated the same way," Hoyer said. The tax, coined the Patriot Premium by Hoyer last month, was added on to the bill in order to win the support of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog caucus. The Blue Dogs make up around a fifth of the House Democratic caucus and their support is often crucial to the Democrats being able to pass fiscal bills. The House leadership is gambling that while they may lose the support of the Blue Dogs for the bill, they could gain the backing of House Republicans who have stated their support for extending veterans' education benefits. Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said House Republicans might look at the measure more favorably without the additional spending. "If indeed they strip out all of the other unrelated domestic spending, that's a step in the right direction," said Smith. In a surprise move, Senate Republicans backed the war funding bill with the GI spending attached two weeks ago. They had been expected to vote down the measure. Were the House to pass the bill, it would go back to the Senate for another vote. If it were successful there, it would then go to the White House, where President George W. Bush has repeatedly threatened to veto it. The House Democratic leadership believes that it would be difficult for the president to veto a bill with only the veterans education spending in addition to the money the Pentagon says it needs to fund the wars. It is unclear at this stage whether the unemployment benefits extension could resurface in the future, either as a stand-alone measure or forming part of a second economic stimulus package. -By Corey Boles, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6601; corey.boles@dowjones.com
La Bourse de Paris a fait du yo-yo en tout début de séance lundi, avant de s'inscrire en territoire nettement négatif après un quart d'heure de transactions. Après avoir...
Wall Street a ouvert en baisse de près de 1,7% lundi et amplifiait rapidement son repli dans les premières minutes d'échanges, les nouvelles inquiétantes en provenance des...
La Bourse de Tokyo a fini en baisse lundi, les investisseurs se montrant prudents face aux incertitudes économiques. L'indice Nikkei a perdu 1,35% ou 115,05 points, à 8.397,22...
Les cours du pétrole sont repartis à la baisse lundi après la décision prise par l'Opep ce week-end de reporter à décembre sa décision de réduire sa production pour tenter...
