Bush will veto any “micro-funding” bill

This has been pointed out elsewhere, but according to Secretary Gates:

a short-term funding bill would be very disruptive and “have a huge impact” on contracts to repair and replace equipment. The Defense Department, he said, just doesn’t “have the agility to manage a two month appropriation.” [...] …if Congress votes again in July, but rejects the funding bill, “I would have to shut down significant elements of the Department of Defense in August and September because I wouldn’t have the money to pay salaries.”

Therefore Bush will veto it.

Luckily Bush should get some support from some very powerful allies in Congress. Captain Ed has lots on this aspect:

[Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid and other Democratic leaders are engaged in closed-door negotiations with White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and other senior Bush aides on how to agree on the funding bill given Bush’s refusal to accept a pullout timetable and Democrats’ desire to see an end to the war.

Asked if he would back a proposal floating around the House of Representatives to fund the war for just three months as a compromise to the war funding dispute, Reid said, “I personally don’t support that.”

Good to hear. it also seems he can count on the support of Carl Levin:

“I don’t think that’s the best approach,” Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich) said Friday. “I think it’s too close to the end of the fiscal year for that.”

Well, with stalwart, consistent people like Reid behind him, I am sure the president is bristling with confidence. They would never turn around and vote that way anyway, would they?

This however sounds a good bit more promising than relying on the word of Reid:

Sen. Ben Nelson, “who provided the crucial 51st vote on the original war supplemental and is likely to be a conferee on the second version, poured cold water all over the House proposal, saying he sensed that it ‘would be dead on arrival over here.’” In fact, according to Roll Call, “House Democratic sources” say Pelosi “is teeing up the short-term measure in order to mollify Democratic liberals, even though she expects to have to ask those Members to vote for a conference report less to their liking.”

It isn’t just the Senate, the House has some dissenters on this issue as well:

“There are a lot of ideas being discussed, and Mr. Hoyer personally feels that at this time he doesn’t see that particular option moving forward,” said Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Farnen Bernards.