Dick Cheney's position that he's not part of the Executive branch may cost him. As Melanie Sloan noted on Hardball last night [0]:

He saying that he's a fourth branch of government all by himself. There's the judiciary, the legislative, the executive and then there's the Cheney branch."

The problem for Cheney is that despite what he thinks, there is no Cheney branch.  Actually, the budget to pay for his office and its operations comes from the Executive branch budget -- to the tune of $4.4 million according to The Hill [1]. And, leading Democrats on both sides of the aisle are threatening to pull that money -- all of it:

Durbin’s warning came as Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), No. 3 in Democratic leadership, said that he would “seriously consider” joining House counterparts in seeking to yank funding for Cheney’s office after the vice president contended that his office is a hybrid entity that is neither legislative nor executive.

“The decision to exempt your office from this system for protecting classified information is deeply troubling because it could place national security secrets at risk,” Durbin wrote to Cheney yesterday. Durbin did not specify how appropriators would hit Cheney’s funding.

Durbin’s subcommittee is slated to mark up its spending bill just after July 4th recess. The House will take up its version of the bill this week, and Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) is vowing a floor push to strike all $4.4 million of the vice president’s budget.

Durbin called on Cheney to avert the funds cut by immediately adhering to the 1995 executive order at issue. That directive refers to executive “agencies,” a designation that both Cheney and President Bush believe does not apply to the vice president.