THE NATION - Senate ready to buck Bush on funding for local police - Lawmakers want to add $110 million to the popular program, but they probably couldn't override a likely veto.
WASHINGTON — Rather than bow to President Bush's budget warnings, a defiant Senate today is poised to approve a bill that would increase funding for an anti-crime program that the White House has sought to cut.
Senators are expected to add $110 million to funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services program, even after the president sought Monday to rally the public against Democratic efforts to increase spending for domestic programs.
"You're fixing to see what they call a fiscal showdown in Washington," Bush told an enthusiastic crowd in Rogers, Ark., as he made his latest effort to cast himself as a fighter for fiscal responsibility.
Democrats, for their part, are carefully picking their fights, daring Bush to veto spending increases for popular programs.
After sending him an expansion of a children's health insurance program, which he vetoed, they are seeking to provide an increase in federal money to police departments.
That money can be used to hire more officers at a time when violent crime has been on the rise nationally.
Bush and Congress have been trading barbs for weeks over their budget plans. Democrats want to spend about $22 billion more in fiscal 2008 than the president has requested.
The extra $110 million for the COPS program is expected to be added to a bill funding the departments of Justice and Commerce, NASA and a number of other agencies for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. It is one of several spending bills that Bush has threatened to veto.
Democrats show no sign of backing down, saying they are seeking to restore funding for programs that Bush has tried to cut or were neglected while Republicans controlled Congress and the White House. Earlier this month, the Senate added $1 billion for NASA to the bill, which already exceeded Bush's request by more than $3 billion.
"I'm perplexed that there is a veto threat by the president on this bill because [it] takes a strong position to secure America here at the homeland," Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) said during debate on the COPS program Monday.
The Senate spending bill would provide $660 million for COPS. The House measure provides even more -- $725 million.
The program was a favorite of President Clinton's. Bush has proposed cutting its funding to about $32 million from the roughly $500 million provided last year.
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