President Bush excoriated the Democratic Congress Tuesday for “not getting its work done” and warned that he would veto any fiscal 2008 appropriations package that combines defense and veterans’ spending with domestic funding he considers excessive.

Democrats have made no decisions yet but have discussed sending Bush a three-bill package that would include bills funding the Pentagon, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education departments.

“It’s hard to imagine a more cynical political strategy than trying to hold hostage funding for our troops in combat and our wounded warriors in order to extract $11 billion in additional social spending,” Bush said after a meeting with House Republican leaders at the White House. “If the reports of this strategy are true, I will veto such a three-bill pileup.”

The entire federal government is currently operating under a stopgap funding measure that expires Nov. 16.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said the “fight over 2008 appropriations bills is not a fight over spending. It is a fight over priorities. The president wants to slash funding for education, medical research, cops on the beat and other key priorities, while spending another $200 billion on his failing policy in Iraq — none of which is paid for, all of which would be added to the deficit.”

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seemed unmoved by the president’s latest veto threat. He promised only that Congress would send “an appropriations bill to the president” sometime before the current stopgap bill expires, in order to “get that process started.” Reid added, “Some say that no matter what we send him, he’s going to veto it, and that may be the case, I don’t know.”