By Jen DiMascio
Plans for the House to vote today on a bridge fund to provide money for the war in Iraq looked iffy yesterday afternoon.
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said he would have to sell to the caucus his plan to provide about $50 billion along with language to remove troops from Iraq.
That may mean that consideration of the bridge fund, which he anticipated yesterday will be pushed back, he said.
House and Senate leadership continued to discuss the matter throughout the day yesterday.
Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), the subcommittee’s ranking member, said he was preparing to relive the debate that played out over the fiscal year 2007 spring supplemental, when Democrats failed to pass the bill with Iraq language and eventually dropped it.
“I think we’ll go back through that exercise again,” Young said.
He dropped in a pointed observation for Democrats resisting a blank check for the war in Iraq.
“If you vote for the defense appropriations bill, it will be a vote to fund the war,” Young said, because the Pentagon will transfer funding from the basic bill to provide for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.