President Bush Drawing Line in Sand on Spending
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Bill, as part of the war against terrorism, of course a number of Democrats, some Republicans talking about spending more money to help stimulate the economy, to help people who have been laid off since September 11th. However, we know now President Bush is drawing a line in the sand saying no more spending, or at least doesn't want it to go over the number he's put out there. Let's get the latest from Capitol Hill. Our correspondent Jonathan Karl is there. Jonathan, what are they saying about the president today up there?</s>JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that veto threat setting us up for a showdown between the president and Democrats on one hand, Democrats in Congress who want to spend more to stimulate the economy, but also Republicans who are saying we need more emergency spending for the Defense Department in light of the war in Afghanistan. Now Trent Lott, the leader of the Senate Republicans, came out earlier today, and said that he will stand by the president on this question.</s>SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Congress now saying to the president, oh wait, we want an additional $20 billion for so-called homeland security, and oh, by the way, 20 billion more for defense, and gee, what about agriculture, too. All of a sudden you could be looking at 40, 50, 20, 50, 60 billion above what we have already greed to. So the president said we had a deal, we have enough to do what we need to do now, including defense. Does anybody believe that President George W. Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld would be opposed to more money for defense if they needed it? I don't think that's soluble.</s>KARL: But democrats say there are clearly emergency needs they have a responsibility to fund.</s>REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: I see it as really a division or a debate over priorities. What a bipartisan group in the Congress is saying is we need more for vaccines for smallpox and anthrax, we need more to make sure that ships coming into the country don't contain dangerous containers, that we need to protect our water, and our nuclear facilities.</s>KARL: And it is a bipartisan group. This is going to be a major battle, that the president will have conservative Republicans on his side up here in Capitol Hill, Judy, but those appropriators, the members of the committees that actually write the checks up on Capitol Hill are by in large on this question standing with the Democrats, saying that Congress needs to appropriate more in the way of emergency spending -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: It's not a just a straight party line split here. All right, Jon Karl, thanks very much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com