House Overrides Bush Veto

The House of Representatives voted 361 to 54 to override President Bush's veto of the Water Resources Development Act. The bill authorizes $11.2 billion in funding for Army Corps of Engineering projects over the next four years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If the Senate follows the House's lead, as it is widely expected to do, it will be the first veto override of the president's tenure.

The vote in the House and the expected Senate action sets the stage for more battles between Congress and the White House this fall over spending levels.

President Bush has threatened to veto nine of twelve annual spending bills for authorizing more money than his budget requested. The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) was the first of these to make it to his desk and with good reason. Democratic Congressional Leaders knew that they would have enough support from Republicans to override a veto. One hundred and thirty-eight Republicans ended up voting with all the Democrats in favor of the measure.

The WRDA is a public works bill that is stuffed with projects that Congressmen love to highlight as achievements when they are running for reelection. So it is not surprising that, despite all the talk about fiscal discipline in Washington, that this bill was able to find support among members of both parties. But any good will engendered by the bipartisan override of the WRDA may be short lived, as Democratic leaders readied a plan to send the next of the spending bills to the White House.

Democrats moved to combine the $151 billion Labor, Health, and Education appropriations bill with a $64 billion veteran's spending measure. President Bush has threatened a veto on the labor bill but has stated that he will agree to the veteran's spending. By combining the bills, Congressional Democrats are essentially daring the president to veto veteran's spending. The president is likely to take up that challenge. Republicans are trying to procedurally force Democrats to separate the two bills, but is is unclear that they will be able to do so. It is equally unclear if there are enough votes for an override on this next spending bill.

Looming over all of this is the fact that the government is operating on an extension of last fiscal year's spending authority. That extension ends on Nov. 16. Congress will have to extend that authority again unless it can reach an accommodation with the White House by that time. Eventually, though, Congress will have to start passing appropriations bills. When it does, it cannot count on the president to go along with its spending plan, nor can it count on Congressional Republicans continuing to help them enact it.