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Nov 20, 2007

Prospects For Passage Of Labor-HHS Appropriations

The Labor-HHS Appropriations bill that includes funding for the Social Security Administration was vetoed by the President. Override of the veto failed by only two votes in the House of Representatives. There was no veto override in the Senate, but the bill had originally passed in the Senate 75-19, which strongly suggests that the Senate would have voted to override.

Probably, all Democrats have to do is to get two members of the House of Representatives to switch their votes. Democrats are planning to cut the bill down so that it will only contain $11 billion more than the President had requested instead of the $22 billion in the bill vetoed by the President. Would that not be enough to induce two Representatives to agree to override a veto of a new bill? I am no expert on such matters, but it seems like a reasonable possibility. Of course, we have no idea how much the Social Security Administration would get in this new bill.

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