In Blow to House GOP, Senate OKs Defense Bill Without Debt Increase

WASHINGTON —  An effort by House Republican leaders to shield party members from having to cast a politically risky election-year vote to raise the government’s borrowing limit was foiled Thursday by an unlikely group: Republicans in the Senate.

The House had voted Tuesday to make room for a debt-limit increase in its version of a $417-billion defense spending bill. Critics said that action was designed to provide political cover for fiscal conservatives, who could say they had to vote for the increase because they could not vote against defense.

But the Senate refused to include an increase in the government’s $7.4-trillion debt ceiling as part of its $416-billion bill approved Thursday on a 98-0 vote.

The debt-limit provision underscored the sometimes chilly relations between the two Republican-controlled chambers.

Apart from differences over the debt limit, the House and Senate fiscal 2005 spending bills for the Pentagon are similar in many ways.

Both would provide the $25 billion that President Bush has sought for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- an amount that some predict could grow to at least $50 billion. Both also would provide $95 million in humanitarian relief in response to the crisis in Sudan, which has driven tens of thousands of refugees into Chad.

The Senate measure also includes $50 million to help reimburse local law enforcement for security at this summer’s Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions.

The Senate approved a measure Wednesday night authorizing Pentagon programs. The bill approved Thursday provided the spending.

Some House Republicans reportedly were furious at Senate GOP leaders for again spoiling their plans.

They already were steamed at a small group of Senate Republicans who had blocked passage of a budget by insisting that any future tax cuts be offset by spending reductions or increases in other taxes. Last year, House GOP leaders accused Senate Republican leaders of betraying them by working out a deal to limit Bush’s tax cut to $350 billion without telling them. And Thursday, House and Senate Republicans escalated their dispute over a highway funding bill.

Senate Republicans did not criticize their House counterparts publicly, but Democrats did not feel any such restraint in assailing House Republicans for trying to avoid a tough vote.

“We should not cloak the debt increase in the camouflage uniform of the defense appropriations bill,” said Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.).

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, said he would “just as soon” separate the debt limit from the defense bill.

Treasury officials, estimating the debt limit would be reached in late summer or early fall, have urged Congress to increase it soon. The government cannot borrow if it reaches the ceiling, and without borrowing it cannot finance all of its operations.

The decision by Senate GOP leaders was prompted by Democrats’ threats to delay passage of the spending bill unless Republicans agreed to drop the debt-limit provision.