Roy Blunt: “That's what I thought, the possibility of Tuesday. I would point out to my friend that the bill that the President did…”

“That's what I thought, the possibility of Tuesday. I would point out to my friend that the bill that the President did sign, the Defense bill, was very close to the amount of money, a reduction in the amount of money that was equal to the increase on the Military Construction and Veterans bill the President said he would sign, which is actually in the context of both what most of the Members on this side of the aisle had hoped for and what the President said he would insist on, which is the obvious ability of the majority, within the 6.5 percent increase that he proposed, to stay below that number. Actually, Military Construction and Defense, while they are not a perfectly balanced outcome, come close to the way that system can work and still be within the President's number and an example of two bills that he said he would be willing to sign, neither of which are the bills he proposed, but the combination of which certainly are within an amount of money that could be adjusted in the other bills. On the military question, those two bills we are talking about, does the gentleman anticipate any opportunity to have funding, either full or partial, for Iraq and Afghanistan without withdrawal language in the bill we would send over to the Senate or at some later time next week?”