Warning of vetoes, Bush pushes back on Democrats

President Bush never picked a spending fight when his party ran Congress, but with Democrats now in charge of the budget, he’s dug in for a challenge.\nIn a stop in Arkansas, Bush on Monday planned to again chide congressional leaders for failing to send him any of the 12 spending bills that keep the government running. The budget year began Oct. 1, and federal agencies are operating on a stopgap bill for now.\nFor a president short on domestic victories, the White House sees fiscal discipline as a winning argument for Bush: a chance to label the opposition in tax-and-spend terms.\nAmong fiscal conservatives, Bush’s timing seems a bit late.\nBush never vetoed an appropriations bill when Republicans controlled Congress. He is prepared to use his veto now to reject Democratic spending bills, and with confidence; conservative House Republicans appear to have the votes to sustain his promised vetoes.\nIn northwest Arkansas, Bush toured the manufacturing plant of Stribling Packaging and Display, where cardboard boxes were rolling off the assembly lines. Bush said he wanted to remind people that the economy depends on such businesses to provide job opportunities.\n“That’s what we want,” he said. “We want people working in America.”\nHe later stopped by the Whole Hog Cafe for lunch with business leaders. Bush loaded up a plate of barbecue and prodded photographers to hurry with their pictures so he could eat.\nIn the budget stalemate, Democrats are pressing to spend about $22 billion more on domestic programs than Bush wants. Education, health research and low-income housing grants are among the issues on which Bush and Democratic leaders disagree.\nGiven the budget’s scope, a difference in the range of $20 billion is “trivial in economic terms,” said Sidney Weintraub, an expert on trade and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.\n“But they think it might have a payoff in political terms,” Weintraub said of Bush and fellow Republicans. “I think the Democrats will play this as ‘We’re more responsible on budget issues than Republicans are,’ and this is their way of saying it isn’t so.”\nBush has already vetoed legislation that would have raised spending on a popular children’s health insurance program $35 billion over five years. Bush has called for a $5 billion increase and planned to defend his position again in his remarks in Rogers, Ark.\nBush has offered to accept a bigger spending increase on the program to get a deal done with Democrats. But he and his aides won’t say how high he’s willing to go.\n“We’re not going to negotiate through the media on this,” deputy press secretary Tony Fratto told reporters on Air Force One on Monday. “The goal has to be to get the policy right – what are the principles behind the policy – and then see what the numbers are.”\nThe House will vote to override his veto Thursday, but it is expected to fall short.