| Republican congress defies bush on highway bill { April 2 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/politics/02CND-ROAD.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/politics/02CND-ROAD.html
April 2, 2004 House Backs Highway-Spending Bill By DAVID STOUT WASHINGTON, April 2 — The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a highway-spending bill today, defying a threat from President Bush to veto the measure.
The 357-to-65 vote, reflecting broad support from members of both parties, sends the measure to a conference between the House and the Senate.
The House authors of the bill have put its cost at $275 billion over the next six years. The White House has said the real cost will be closer to $284 billion.
Regardless of the real figure, President Bush has threatened to veto the measure as too costly at a time that he and Congressional Republicans are supposed to be serious about holding down the federal deficit.
Since the Senate version of the bill is at least $30 billion more costly than the House version, a presidential veto — which would be the first to be cast by Mr. Bush — seems highly likely. In fact, White House officials have said lately that Mr. Bush objects to any spending over $256 billion over six years.
"Thirty billion, when you are cutting the deficit in half in five years, is real money," Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said the other day, apparently with no humor intended.
Before the final House vote, which came around noon today, members rejected by 225 to 198 a Democratic move to increase spending to $318 billion, or roughly in line with the current Senate version.
Representative Don Young, the Alaska Republican who heads the House Transportation Committee, supported the bill as it was passed today, even though he insisted that it was some $100 billion short of what is needed to rebuild the country's crumbling roads. As for holding down costs, he told The Associated Press, "We've done everything we could possibly do."
The highway-spending bill enjoys wide support among Democrats and Republicans alike because the members of both parties have something in common: their constituents use highways (and bridges and bike paths and other incidentals wrapped into the bill.)
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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