The White House is readying for a showdown with the Democratic Congress over domestic spending, while still embroiled in a fight with lawmakers over Iraq policy.

Rob Portman, the Office of Management and Budget director, said May 11 that he would urge President Bush to veto fiscal 2008 spending bills if Congress does not adhere to the president’s top line on discretionary spending.

Democrats are preparing to finish work this week on their fiscal 2008 budget resolution (S Con Res 21). The resolution sets the overall cap that the Appropriations committees use to write the 12 annual spending bills. That cap is expected to be more than $20 billion above what the president wants.

“It is timely to notify you that I will recommend the president veto any appropriations bill that exceeds his request until Congress demonstrates a sustainable path that keeps discretionary spending within the president’s topline of $933 billion and ensures that the Department of Defense has the resources necessary to accomplish its mission,” Portman said in a letter to the chairmen and ranking Republicans on the Budget committees.

Democrats quickly dismissed the threat.

“After racking up more than $3 trillion of new debt under its watch, the Bush administration now pretends to be fiscally disciplined by threatening to veto appropriations bills because they include investments in priorities like education and veterans’ health care,” Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said in a statement. “That is as cynical as it is shortsighted.”

Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., had a similar take.

“The White House should step back from this petty game of brinkmanship that it is playing,” Byrd said in a statement. “The American people are tired of these games and want the government to work together in their best interests.”

Conrad said May 10 that the final budget agreement will likely provide a cap close to what is in the House-approved budget resolution, which is $23 billion above the president’s proposal. This does not include war funding.

Most of that difference is expected to go toward boosting domestic spending — on Democratic priorities such as housing, education and health programs — that the new majority says has suffered under the first six years of the Bush presidency and a Congress largely controlled by Republicans.

Bush made good on his most recent veto threat, when he rejected the first version of this year’s Iraq War supplemental spending measure (HR 1591).

Democrats have narrow margins of control in both chambers and had no chance of overriding that veto. Doing so requires a two-thirds majority.

Although that fight boiled down to stark differences over the war and when troops should be brought home, not spending, it showed that despite low approval ratings, Bush maintains a powerful weapon in the veto.

Now the question is whether enough Republicans will support increased spending for domestic appropriations bills to force the president to back down on some measures, or at least face the uncomfortable prospect of opposition from some in his own party.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio applauded the veto threat, but focused most of his praise on Portman’s call for the final budget resolution to assume the extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts (PL 107-16, PL 108-27), set to expire in 2010.

Jon Kyl of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said the government must hold the line on spending. “I support and encourage the president’s decision to veto excessive spending in order to encourage Congress to be fiscally responsible,” he said.

Bills coming out of the Appropriations committees often enjoy bipartisan support.

When asked May 9 — before Portman’s letter was sent — whether he thought GOP appropriators might vote against bills this year because of increased spending, Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, ranking Republican on House Appropriations, said, “If there is an effort to pad and increase almost for the sake of it, we could find for the first time I’ve been around here the subcommittees divide themselves on partisan lines, and that would be very unfortunate.”

But Bush’s spending proposals have proved difficult even for Republicans to swallow in recent years.

Last year, the GOP-controlled Congress was unable to agree on a final budget resolution or finish nine of their 11 appropriations bills, in part because there was not enough support for spending levels provided for domestic bills under the president’s cap, which GOP leaders had decided to follow.

Despite the problems enacting stand-alone bills, the Appropriations committees were able to move measures to the floor quickly by shifting $4 billion in the House and $9 billion in the Senate away from the president’s request for defense programs in order to boost spending for domestic bills.

Portman’s letter suggests that the White House could be open to a similar shifting this year, so long as the 12 bills do not exceed the $933 billion figure and the military gets what it needs. But Democrats appear in no mood to go this route.

The veto threat, while not unexpected, could further slow down an appropriations process that has already been delayed, in part by the absence of a final agreement on a budget resolution and also by the extensive war spending debate.

Both Byrd and his House counterpart, David R. Obey of Wisconsin, want to clear all 12 of the bills by the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year, as they were able to do in 1994 when both were chairmen. House leaders want most of that chamber’s bills passed by the end of June. The Defense bill is not expected to come up until July because it provides a vehicle for continued debate over the war.

Finding time for spending bills in the Senate is never easy, and any veto fights will only make it tougher for Democrats to complete their appropriations work in an orderly fashion.

House Appropriations subcommittee markups will start this week at the earliest. The plan is to get the first bill to the floor the week of May 21, but that will be difficult.