WASHINGTON – President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual same-day visit to Congress yesterday, pleading with Republicans to salvage a limping White House agenda.
Bush asked House members to adopt his version of HMO reform, ease restrictions on religious groups, and said he wouldn’t mind if they killed the Democrats’ campaign-finance bill, which comes up for a vote today.
But the president also warned them against larding up budget bills with pork, restating his threat to veto any legislation he doesn’t like.
Bush told the Republicans he’d “use his veto pen against excessive spending,” said Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas), the party’s No. 3 man in the House.
Those attending the closed meeting in the basement of the Capitol said the president told the congressmen: “I’m here to ask you to continue to work.”
Later in the day, Cheney also made the trip to Capitol Hill, urging Senate Republicans to stick with the president on energy issues, among other things.
It was the first time both men have worked the halls of Congress on the same day – an indication of how nervous they are about the fate of their priorities.
The White House, walloped in June when Sen. Jim Jeffords quit the GOP and handed Senate power to Democrats, is struggling to steer lawmakers back toward Bush’s agenda.
Late yesterday, the president asked 10 Republican lawmakers from New York and New Jersey, including Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), to visit with him privately at the White House.
King said the president was surprisingly loose and “actually seemed to know the issue inside and out.”
On campaign finance, House members are feuding over two competing bills.
One, backed mostly by Democrats, bans soft money altogether and mirrors the version approved by the Senate earlier this spring. The other, which Bush supports, would place mild restrictions on soft money.