Veterans’ Benefits Bill Wins Approval in Senate (25 Republican senators broke with President Bush)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/washington/23spend.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

May 23, 2008
Veterans’ Benefits Bill Wins Approval in Senate
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — Twenty-five Republican senators broke with President Bush and voted Thursday for a major expansion of veterans’ benefits as part of a bill to finance another year of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The proposal, adopted by a vote of 75 to 22, also provides money for extended unemployment insurance benefits and other domestic programs to which Mr. Bush has objected.

The size of the vote surprised Republican leaders, provided fresh evidence of the president’s lame-duck status and suggested that election-year politics had fractured Republican unity.

While 25 Republicans supported the proposal, 22 opposed it. Forty-eight Democrats and two independents voted for the bipartisan measure, drafted by two Vietnam veterans, Senators Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska.

The proposal on veterans’ benefits was approved by a veto-proof majority, with support from conservative Republican senators including Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma and John Thune of South Dakota.

The bill now goes back to the House, where its future course is somewhat uncertain. The House had endorsed a similar expansion of education benefits for veterans, but has also adopted policy measures to speed the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The Senate rejected efforts to limit the president’s hand in Iraq.

FULL story at link.