Bush, Congress Still Battling Over Education Budget

The Department of Education’s budget for fiscal 2008 remains up in the air, after House Democrats narrowly failed to override a presidential veto of a bill that would have raised spending on health, education, and labor programs.

The House fell two votes short, with a vote of 277-141 on Nov. 15, of the two-thirds necessary to override President Bush’s veto of the education spending bill. The measure would have provided $60.7 billion in discretionary spending for the Department of Education for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, a 5.6 percent increase over fiscal 2007, and 8.3 percent more than President Bush requested.

The Senate approved its version of the bill, 56-37, earlier this month, but did not consider the veto override because it...