Congressional Democrats have begun to "prep for a pre-Thanksgiving budget showdown" with President Bush, as lawmakers seek to finalize a more than $700 billion package that includes the fiscal year 2008 Defense (HR 3222), Labor-HHS-Education (HR 3043) and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (HR 2642) appropriations bills, CongressDaily reports (Cohn, CongressDaily, 10/29).
The package includes about 70% of the total $955 billion in discretionary spending that Democrats seek for FY 2008 (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 10/29).
House and Senate conferees plan to meet on Thursday after weeks of informal negotiations on the bills and hope to finalize the package by early next week (CongressDaily, 10/29). Bush has threatened to veto the Labor-HHS-Education bill because the legislation exceeds his request for discretionary spending by $9 billion but has not threatened to veto the other two bills (Wayne/Graham-Silverman, CQ Today, 10/29).