Senate leaders reach agreement on process for considering war supplemental spending bill, Medicaid provision

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday reached an agreement on a process for Senate consideration of the war supplemental appropriations bill (HR 2642), including a provision to delay for one year seven new Medicaid regulations proposed by the Bush administration, the AP/Detroit News reports (Taylor, AP/Detroit News, 5/22).

As part of the agreement on the legislation, the Senate will vote on a domestic spending amendment drafted by Senate Appropriations Committee Democrats that includes the Medicaid provision. In the event that the amendment does not receive 60 votes -- the threshold on which Senate leaders agreed -- they will remove the measure, and therefore the Medicaid provision, from the bill. The amendment likely will not receive 60 votes, according to CQ Today.

After the vote on the amendment, the Senate will consider other measures related to war spending and policy conditions for those funds. The Senate likely will send a final version of the bill to the House on Thursday or Friday. The House likely will consider the version of the legislation sent by the Senate during the first week of June, according to a senior House aide.

Senate leaders hope that agreement -- which likely will "anger House Democrats and Senate appropriators, who have wrestled over the package of add-ons and trumpeted their efforts to change war policy" -- will "head off President Bush's plans to veto the measure" (Rogin, CQ Today, 5/21).

Budget

House Democrats on Wednesday had to remove a $3.1 trillion fiscal year 2009 budget resolution from the floor because of a technical problem with a farm bill, the AP/Miami Herald reports (Taylor, AP/Miami Herald, 5/21). As a result, the House likely will not consider the resolution, which currently is overdue by more than one month, until June (Clarke, CQ Today, 5/21).