Chastened by accusations of fiscal irresponsibility by a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, and emboldened by the defeat of his war critics in the Senate, President Bush will warn Democrats in Congress today that he will veto every bill that flouts his tight spending guidelines.

With just a week to go before the end of the fiscal year, when a number of spending measures lapse, the president will confirm his intention of vetoing 10 of the 11 spending bills already passed by the Democratic majority in the House. He also will reconfirm that he will veto the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which comes before Congress for renewal this week.

Mr. Bush reiterated in his radio address on Saturday that he remains in favor of renewing SCHIP but that he will veto the attempt by Democrats in Congress to extend the children’s health insurance measure to large numbers of adults, which he considers to be the introduction of a state-funded health care program by the back door.

The president is expected to use fighting words against the Democrats today, accusing them of profligacy, fiscal irresponsibility, and attempting to return America to a discredited policy of high taxes and high public spending.

The failure of Democrats to muster enough votes in the Senate to set a date for the withdrawal of American forces in Iraq, following the testimony to Congress on September 10–11 of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, which changed the terms of the war debate, has left the president appearing more confident than at any time this year.

Mr. Bush appears keen to use his remaining 15 months in office as a cheerleader for the Republican presidential candidates and to start defining the terms of the 2008 election debate. At his press conference on Thursday, he described himself as a “strong asset” for Republican candidates.

In warning Democrats against trying to extend the remit of SCHIP, the president has spelled out the universal health care program he believes Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree on, based on flat rate tax credits. His remarks on vetoing the SCHIP coincided with the announcement by the two front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senators Clinton and Obama, of their universal health care proposals.

This week the president is seeking to shape the contours of the discussion on responsible public spending, taking as his cue the sharp criticism of his administration’s spending policies by Mr. Greenspan in his memoir “The Age of Turbulence,” published last week.

The former Fed chairman expressed disappointment that Mr. Bush had not vetoed high spending bills when Republicans were in the majority in both houses of Congress.

“There is a remedy for legislative excess: it’s called a presidential veto,” he wrote. “In conversations behind the scenes with senior economic officials, I made no secret of my view that President Bush ought to reject a few bills. … But the answer I received from a senior White House official was that the president didn’t want to challenge House Speaker Dennis Hastert.”

Mr. Greenspan’s critique that the administration had allowed profligacy with public money brought a humorous response from Mr. Bush, who said at his news conference on Thursday: “I think I got a B in Econ 101. I got an A, however, in keeping taxes low and being fiscally responsible with the people’s money.”

The former Fed chairman’s accusations elicited a more robust rebuttal from Vice President Cheney who, in an article for the Wall Street Journal, said his friend Mr. Greenspan was “off the mark.”

Mr. Bush appears to be making a virtue of necessity by turning the defense of his fiscal record into a stick with which he can beat the Democrats in Congress, while trying to lure the Democratic presidential hopefuls into a potentially damaging debate on taxation, public spending, and reducing the deficit.

Today the president will repeat the message of his little noticed July 7 radio address, in which he said: “The Democrats’ budget plan proposes $205 billion in additional domestic spending over the next five years and includes the largest tax increase in history. No nation has ever taxed and spent its way to prosperity. And I have made it clear that I will veto any attempt to take America down this road.”

Mr. Bush’s admonitions on fiscal responsibility come in the same week Defense Secretary Gates petitions Congress for a further $47 billion to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The estimated military spending figure of $147.5 billion for 2008 has been revised upward to nearly $195 billion, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. The extra expenditure is largely due to the cost of General Petraeus’s surge in forces, believed to be an additional $15 billion, with the rest to be spent on mine-proofing military vehicles, better armor, new weapons systems, and the refurbishment of existing equipment.