The President will veto 9 of 12 spending bills
Get Ready for this summer's main event.
By Mark Kilmer Posted in The White House — Comments (20) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
In his column this morning, Bob Novak declares that President Bush "plans to veto the homeland security appropriations bill nearing final passage, followed by vetoes of eight more money bills sent him by the Democratic-controlled Congress." Novak calls this "a veto onslaught of historic proportions from a president who did not reject a single bill during his first term."
Indeed, the President will sign only three of the bills in the form in which Nancy and the Dems sent them to his desk. He will veto the homeland security spending bill, the energy-water and interior-environment bills; the labor, health and human services, and education; transportation and housing and urban development; commerce, justice and science; agriculture and rural development; state and foreign operations; and defense spending bills.
He will sign the military construction and veterans' affair spending bill, Novak reports, as well as " those of the legislative branch, where Congress traditionally sets its own funding, and financial services and general government, where the House bill falls short of the administration's request. (According to Novak's Congressional sources, the President will sign the military and VA bill, despite its higher spending increase, in part because Congressman Jeb Hensarling warned him that his veto would be overridden. More on Congressman Hensarling, a star in this scenario, in a bit.)
Why is President Bush doing this? Such a veto spree is way out of character for President Bush, who has never seemed to mind spending money confiscated from taxpayers. Novak says it is the Congressional GOP which wants to retake the mantle of "fiscal responsibility," and they've put the President up to this.
Read On…
Our friend Congressman Hensarling, the Texas Republican, played a major role in this. According to a Wall Street Journal piece from last week:
Texan Jeb Hensarling announces that he's gathered signatures from 147 House GOP Members promising to sustain vetoes of any spending bill that exceeds President Bush's budget requests.
That's one more vote than the 146 needed to uphold a Presidential veto, so it's a big deal if the Members keep their word.
Why wouldn't they?
That won't be easy because Democrats will load up the bills with earmarks designed to buy votes even from the minority.
"LEGISLATIVELY DIRECTED SPENDING!" >>SLAP<<
If we're to turn the corner on pork, these reluctant pork-addicts had better check into rehab, get with the program, or get lost. Their perfidy will not be kept secret.
The WSJ suggests that "[a] summer spending showdown would be good for the country, not to mention the GOP." I agree, and I'll not that it's much preferable to spending the summer searching for murdered interned or watching a strange woman in a ditch.
And Bob Novak promises that showdown. He reports that Budget Director Bob Portman is in on this. If you'll recall, Portman represented Ohio's 2nd CD before stepping down to become U.S. Trade Representative in 2005. Had this not happened, he might have become a victim of the 2006 election dive, which he blames on, in Novak's words, "Republicans losing the mantle of fiscal responsibility."
Novak forecasts for the upcoming vetoes: "It will trigger an epochal political struggle in the months ahead." I hope so, and many of us have been looking forward to this for a long time. Let's drop this lunatic immigration bill and do America's business.
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The President will veto 9 of 12 spending bills 20 Comments (0 topical, 20 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Bush is 6 years too late on this. The only thing keeping me from completely writing him off is the hope that Souter goes this summer. Otherwise, Bush is done as far as I'm concened.
But he says that he is going to do it now. The man has nothing to lose, no political chits about which to worry. The House GOP is ready for the fight, and there will be no override.
This is what we need. I will support this President on this with all I've got. (I would support a President Hillary Rodham in this, but it's not in her nature and she will never be President.)
I will not throw out the baby with the bathwater, which is a callous and gruesome expression anyway, but it works.
Glorious Day when there is a large, public showdown on pork. I find it hard to believe that Republicans will put up a fight for anything principled, especially when they can be payed not to put up such a fight. But I will remain optimistic.
But I wonder, how will the media paint the portrait of the showdown? That is a key question.
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"Grant what Thou commandest, and command what Thou dost desire." -Augustine
I stand with President Bush on these vetoes. I also agree with the President that a big factor in the GOP losing seats in '06 is the loss of fiscal responsibility. So far, every time he has said he would veto he did it. There have been a lot of posts lately on RS where people appear to go out of their way to say something hateful about President Bush. I understand disagreement with him concerning enforcement of border security issue. Vetoing these bills is a good thing, and we should show him some appreciation for this.
"We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders -- or at least made great headway."
Fred Thompson
"Vetoing these bills is a good thing, and we should show him some appreciation for this."
When this President and his minions stop name calling and degrading me and showing me a little appreciation he will get said appreciation back and not one moment before.
I'll believe it when I see it. Don't forget, he's a uniter, not a divider.
For this insane illegal alien crime forgiveness bill -- by promising vetoes on spending bills and delivering the goods to the House members before the House members have to deliver the goods on the immigration bill.
Then San Fran Nan will get out her whips and chains and get her side of the House lined up to vote for it, too. Finally, the President gets to be a "uniter" behind the worst piece of legislation in history ever to pass through Congress.
You heard it here first.
For all the Sith-like-powers that some attribute to Karl Rove, the President has seriously angered his core constituency by pushing a dubious immigration bill.
He therefore needs a way to regain some lost support, what better then to start by standing up to the Democrats for their spending habits?
Politicians are creatures of habit, and have inbuilt self-defense mechanisms that evolve of long years of following their chosen career path.
Perhaps with the Democrats in Congress being so unpopular, this could provide the president with some swinging room. I stress maybe, he needs to do this right.
I of course encourage fiscal discipline whatever the underlying political reasons for it.
My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
Yes, of course, criticize the strategy which appears to finally be in our favor.
So I am guessing Mark, you foresaw the inevitable panoply of criticism this issue would generate. All the should of, could of, etc. Nonetheless, this is finally some excellent election strategy. While I understand the frustration, pundits should step back and look at the positive aspects.
For too long, the WH has stood back on many of these issues. However, what was not seen is if they finally fought back, Democrats would be in a very untenable situation legislatively. Our government cuts both way and this has been a single edge sword thus far. One look at the inter branch cooperation on this one will tell you that era seems to be over; I hope it continues since this is good for the government and our party should it be sustained.
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report
My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
and some people will react viscerally to anything else the President does because of his actions and words regarding immigration. I understand.
I also know that this is huge, both in policy terms and in political ramifications. This is not a community for the discussion of immigrations, forsaking all else, and there will be a lot for us to do regarding this.
And remember, the Democrats are making this also about earmarks.
Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly happy that he's taking a tough line on spending. As far as I'm concerned, every president should veto every spending bill that has growth which outpaces last year's inflation.
But this is a sham. And it demonstrates just how broken our political system is. There is no principle left. Everything is about politics -- for just about everybody involved (I'll exclude people like Tom Coburn, who are deadly serious about restraining wasteful spending).
Republicans are happy to wear the "fiscal responsibility" label when they're only in a position to frustrate those holding the reins. But, when they're holding the reins, they're every bit as bad as the alternative.
It just disgusts me that the Republican Party p***ed away such a great -- and rare! -- opportunity to demonstrate spending restraint with firm control of both houses of Congress and the White House.
I'd applaud GWB on this -- if I thought it was a sincere effort to restrain spending. But it's not. It's only a sincere effort to play politics. The time to be serious about this stuff passed him by years ago -- and the same goes for the Congressional GOP.
It's been this way since the time of Rome, politicians and politics aren’t a business for idealists. It is a necessary evil, and the ideals it espouses are often trampled underneath human weaknesses.
My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
I understand what you're saying -- it's folly to expect anything but politics from politicians. And I'm not saying that I am, necessarily.
In other words, I'd be remiss if a Republican President wasn't wielding his veto pen against a Democratic Congress. But he's already shown his cards on spending. He was bad about it and the Republicans running Congress for his first 6 years in office enabled him to be bad.
And this is what gives one-party control of government a bad name.
So he has no credibility left from me on the issue. He will go down in history as a big spending president -- and he will have caused a lot of damage to his (and my) party's credibility on the matter in future elections.
Now, I do have to say that GWB never laid claim to the mantle of small government conservatism. So, it's not fair or accurate to say that he has governed all that differently than he campaigned (at least on spending matters).
But that defense doesn't work for the vast majority of Congressional Republicans who said one thing in their districts and then did another when they got to Washington.
They were drunk with power, considered themselves to be on electoral auto-pilot, and completely lost sight of why they were sent there to begin with. And now they expect us to believe that they've got religion on spending...
...and that's an easy thing to do once you've had your rear end handed to you at the polls.
I understand what you're saying -- it's folly to expect anything but politics from politicians. And I'm not saying that I am, necessarily.
In other words, I'd be remiss if a Republican President wasn't wielding his veto pen against a Democratic Congress. But he's already shown his cards on spending. He was bad about it and the Republicans running Congress for his first 6 years in office enabled him to be bad.
And this is what gives one-party control of government a bad name.
So he has no credibility left from me on the issue. He will go down in history as a big spending president -- and he will have caused a lot of damage to his (and my) party's credibility on the matter in future elections.
Now, I do have to say that GWB never laid claim to the mantle of small government conservatism. So, it's not fair or accurate to say that he has governed all that differently than he campaigned (at least on spending matters).
But that defense doesn't work for the vast majority of Congressional Republicans who said one thing in their districts and then did another when they got to Washington.
They were drunk with power, considered themselves to be on electoral auto-pilot, and completely lost sight of why they were sent there to begin with. And now they expect us to believe that they've got religion on spending...
...and that's an easy thing to do once you've had your rear end handed to you at the polls.
We are behaving like a parliamentary system because we have shut off the critical power distribution features of the constitution.
1) The senator is attached to the same big power structures as always - big business - big labor - big federal bureacracies - but is DISCONNECTED from the legislators of their State.
2) Since we disconnected the senator from the State legislators (17th amendment), the federal government has invented new taxation rights and ignored enumerated powers.
3) We punched a hole in the side of the country with Mexico - NAFTA - so that our own big business structures can play both the Mexican and US governments and people against each other.
They were drunk with power, considered themselves to be on electoral auto-pilot, and completely lost sight of why they were sent there to begin with.
The Republicans who were serving in a Democrat controlled Senate for about 1/3 of those "6 years" (incidentally, that was when the spending was at it's worst) were sure "drunk with power." Is that what "gives one-party control of government" a bad name? I guess I didn't realize that Majority Leader Daschle was a Republican.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
I wish all motives were pure, that all politicians were idealistic with windswept hair, and that Jimmy Steward (R) would rise from the grave, change his name to Mr. Smith, and run for the U.S. Senate.
John Galt ain't on the ballot.
Look, opportunities have been lost. Political games have been played. Milk has been spilt, but we have better things to do than weep our eyes out.
This is the real world. We want fiscal restraint, we're getting fiscal restraint. What goes on in the privacy of their minds is their business so long as they start to limit federal spending. I won't kick progress in one area because I'm ticked about this and that. Grudges restrain progress, so lets move forward.
I believe the president is the last in the line of Big Spending Presidential candidates for a while; I wasn't really surprised that the GOP became drunk with power; it's the nature of human beings.
This is why I prefer neither party having total control of the government, it gives them to much of an incentive to start running roughshod of the principals they need to get elected on.
In an ideal world politicians would be intelligent, hard working, serious people whose interests are in serving the public the best they can and trying to hash out their disagreements.
This is not an ideal world, so we must make due with what we have. Since the DLC Democrats seem to have become ghosts in the Democratic Party, and the self-styled "progressives" are now pulling the strings, I've little choice in where I support.
I think what irks me the most in the perception that these progressive represent my age group (Me being 19), I suppose the best way to fight back is to merely use the tools open to me.
My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
because of the amendment by Tancredo however with regards to the other bills he can veto them all day long it no longer excites me to watch this President pretend at the end to be what he ran as in the beginning. He certainly is not compassionate and he is no conservative and my only hope is that the D's get so hopping mad at him for doing this that they hold up putting is Amnesty bill on the floor of the House. A lady can hope can't she?