Bush Wants Defense Funds Front and Center

President Bush warned Congress on Monday not to squeeze defense spending as it completes work on the bills that will fund the federal government next year. It is a process that is rapidly growing more acrimonious amid signs that Washington’s budget surplus will be much smaller than initially predicted.

In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention here, Bush urged Congress to fund defense and education programs before passing the bills appropriating money for the rest of the government.

“This year, let us have responsible spending from day one, and put the national security and the education of our children first in line when it comes to the appropriation process,” Bush said.

For weeks, White House aides have been concerned that Democrats may try to weaken Bush’s bargaining position by considering the bill funding the Defense Department after it has passed the other 12 appropriation bills that fund the government.

The White House fear is that if other departments are funded first, that would leave Congress less room to pay for defense under the relatively austere overall appropriation limit it approved this spring.

In the past, Bush said in his speech, “the final bill has been the defense appropriations bill and therefore defense appropriations [have] gone without adequate funding. That’s the old way of doing business; that’s the old style of thinking. I have a better idea. Let’s abandon the old ways of gamesmanship, standoffs and government shutdowns.”

Bush is hoping to win a significant increase in defense spending. In his speech Monday, he said he was seeking $39 billion more for next year than former President Clinton initially requested, a figure Bush said would be “the largest increase in military spending since Ronald Reagan.”

But the deteriorating federal budget picture has complicated Bush’s legislative situation.

On Wednesday, the White House Office of Management and Budget is expected to release new figures showing that the federal budget surplus will be much smaller than projected earlier this year, largely because of the slowing economy and the cost of the tax cut Bush pushed through Congress.

Administration officials have hinted that the surplus will be so reduced that the government may consider tapping Social Security revenue to pay for other programs, something the administration and congressional leaders in both parties have now pledged to avoid.

In that environment, Democratic Senate leaders such as Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, have warned Bush that he is unlikely to receive the defense spending increases he has requested unless he finds cuts elsewhere in the budget. The administration argues that its budget plan provides enough to fund all Bush’s priorities without new offsets.

Bush also told the crowd of some 15,000 veterans that he was pressing Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony J. Principi to reduce a mountainous backlog of disability and pension claims at the agency. More than 600,000 claims were stacked up at the VA, Bush said, about 53,000 of them for more than a year.

“I have given Secretary Principi the clearest of clear mandates: He must bring those claims to a speedy and fair resolution,” Bush said. “We must move as quickly as possible on the backlog, and we will.”

From the outset, the audience received Bush warmly. John F. Gwizdak, the VFW’s national commander in chief, introduced Bush with a thinly veiled jab at the president’s predecessor. He described Bush as someone “who’s already started the moment he walked into office to make things a little bit better than they had been.”

Early in his speech, Bush made light of criticism that he is spending too much time on his nearly monthlong vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. “I appreciate every chance I get to travel our country,” he said. “It is important for a president never to become isolated in the seat of power. As great and influential as that city is, sometimes the president just has to get out of Crawford, Texas.”

Later in the day, Bush made a campaign-style swing through a Harley-Davidson plant that he had visited as a candidate. After he toured the factory, the president sat in the cafeteria with about a dozen workers, one of whom asked him what political lessons he had learned from his father. “Never forget your priorities: faith, family and friends,” Bush said.

Bush left the factory with an armful of mementos he may not use, including a black leather Harley jacket with rust-colored sleeves and a multicolored helmet. The president told the workers earlier that, while “people love” their motorcycles, “some people are bold enough to drive them and some of us aren’t.”