Politics

Bush Prods Congress

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 7, 2001 / 1:54 PM EDT / CBS

President Bush said Monday he plans to focus on patients' rights, student testing and religious charities when Congress goes back into session, CBS News White House Correspondent Peter Maer reports.

Mr. Bush used a morning appearance at the White House to try to set the agenda for lawmakers returning to the Capitol from their Independence Day recess.

He pressed them to make his top three priorities — a plan for student testing, new rights for managed-care patients and government funding for religious community groups — their own in the busy weeks between now and the August congressional recess, when Mr. Bush plans to vacation at his Texas ranch.

"This Congress needs to get an education reform bill on my desk before the summer recess," Mr. Bush said. "There is no need for further delay."

The House and Senate must reconcile their separate versions of Mr. Bush's plan to use federal aid as leverage with failing schools and measure school performance by annually testing students in math and reading.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer accused the slim new Democratic majority in the Senate of stalling. "When the Senate changed hands, education fell behind," Fleischer told reporters before Mr. Bush took to the Rose Garden for his speech.

On the politically popular issue of patient rights, Mr. Bush said he wants a bill "that recognizes that patients are important, not lawyers … that encourages quality health care without encouraging frivolous and junk lawsuits."

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"I urge Congress to bring a reasonable bill to my desk. We've made great progress. There's broad agreement," the president added.

Mr. Bush has threatened to veto a Senate-passed bill that promises new health care protections for millions of American patients and offers them a broad ability to sue their health maintenance organizations for denying necessary medical care.

He and his strategists are scrambling to ensure House passage of a Republican alternative that requires patients to appeal their case to a review board before suing and then caps pain and suffering damages at $500,000.

As Mr. Bush reached for the upper hand on debates that are certain to dominate Washington over the next several weeks, he also put in a plug for what he calls his "faith-based initiative" to let religious organizations receive government social-services grants.

The proposal, which is finally making steps through House committees but has yet to find a Senate sponsor, would let government "stand side by side with soldiers in the armies of compassion," Mr. Bush said.

The president spoke at a ceremony honoring the youth mentoring, educatin and community service organization, America's Promise, founded by Secretary of State Colin Powell in 1997 and currently led by former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot.