The Examiner Cries "Use The Veto Pen"
The Washington Examiner had an editorial this morning which Captain Ed astutely points out.
President Bush has frequently portrayed many of his most controversial actions as necessary to protect executive branch prerogatives against usurpations of power by Congress. So it is especially curious that Bush has yet to use the most potent weapon the Founders gave occupants of the Oval Office against Congress: the veto.
If Bush is truly serious about protecting the powers and prerogatives of his office, he will set aside his veto reservations and slam-dunk the emergency funding bill if it comes to his desk in anything remotely resembling the form in which the Senate passed it last week. Bush originally asked for $92 billion to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and to assist with hurricane recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast. The House approved the bill substantially as Bush requested.
Things were completely different in the Senate, where the Old Bulls had a field day larding the measure up with nearly $20 billion worth of special-interest earmarks like $700 million for the “Railroad to Nowhere” in Mississippi. A valiant effort by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to remove a dozen of the worst earmarks failed and the thoroughly stuffed final measure was approved by a wide margin. Passage came within days of release of a highly credible survey that said stopping such spending sprees was the public’s top priority.
That is why the conditions could not now be more perfect for a presidential veto. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and 34 other senators vowed to vote to sustain a presidential veto if needed and House Speaker Dennis Hastert declared the $109 billion earmark-stuffed monstrosity “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber.
But between now and the time the final version of the bill arrives on the president’s desk, a conference committee will have to work out the profound differences between the Senate and House versions. Strange things often happen behind the closed doors of such congressional pow-wows, including the quiet resurrection of measures previously declared dead.
Tellingly, the Senate’s GOP and Democratic leadership appointed a bunch of conferees to negotiate with the House who exemplify the very worst of the corrupt spending culture that has apparently infected three-fourths of what was once known as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Now, it looks like more than a few senators prefer that their chamber be the world’s porkiest.
If the House somehow caves on this one and allows the Senate’s earmark-laden emergency spending measure to become the basis of what is sent to the White House, Bush will be the last official in Washington with a chance to control the federal Leviathan’s voracious appetite for tax dollars that come straight out of your paycheck.
If Bush fails to deliver his first veto now, it won’t much matter for the rest of his term what he thinks about executive branch powers, because the Old Bulls in Congress will have all the privileges that count.
The voters have three priorities this year. They want immigration reform (REAL reform, not the McCain/Kennedy band-aid that isn't even a band-aid), they want more 0of the same for the war (KILLINGand CAPTURING our enemies instead of cutting and running and coddling our enemies), and they want an extra tight leash on the spending in DC. It is the taxpayer's money that they're blowing there on worthless projects like the now famous "Railroad to Nowhere." Trent Lott managed to raise the ire of voters when he got extremely upset over the fact that the PorkBusters were watching over his shoulder.
To him I inquire: Who watches the watchers? Bloggers do, pal, and you got caught. Deal with it. Fix it, move on, and shut up.
But no, they're getting increasingly hostile towards efforts made by the public to make sure their hard-earned money is spent wisely. The number one thing sitting on voter's minds right now is fiscal responsibility. Likewise, the president isn't sitting in a great spot either. He has spent five years in office, going into his sixth, and he has yet to veto one lousy bill. and there have been a handful of them that could have been killed that weren't. The Alaskan Bride to Nowhere's initial funding could have been killed. Campaign Finance Reform should have been vetoed. And don't even get me started on the Medicare reform. And the spending bills have simply gone up. Of course that happens when so many feed at the government trough. (Yeah, I've got a few ideas of "reform" for the welfare queens, too.)
But the Examiner's right. If the president wants to protect his executice branch powers, he should start with the mightiest power that a president can wield. Veto the new spending bill. It kills two birds with one stone. First, it stops the bill. It's pork-laden to the hilt, and it should be vetoed. These are the sorts of bills the veto pen has been famous for. There's a difference between bringing federal dollars into the home states of representatives and senators. It's another to flood them altogether. By killing this bill, the president would be sending a message to Congress that "I mean what I say." No more excessive pork spending.
The second benefit of this move would be to fire up the base. In pulling the veto pen out, the base would see that he's serious about keeping some sort of fiscal control over Congress. Let's face the cold, hard facts here. For the most part, Congress has acted as nuts as a person on a million dollar shopping spree. And they have been on one; all on our dime. Now, the base isn't too happy about some of this spending, and we reacted. We started paying closer attention to this sort of monkey-business, PorkBusters was created, and ever since then the venom has flowed from the halls of Congress to the American people. "How dare you question us. We are Congress, and we know best how to spend our money." It's not your money, windbag. It's ours, and we don't like how you're spending it.
So, I do hope the president uses his veto power if the bill comes in larger than he called for. No matter how large over the limit it is, or how small, it should be vetoed on the principle that it's over the amount he asked for. Send a message with that pen, and then send the message directly to the American people. If the people hear that he vetoed a bill based on the pork within it, he'll be celebrated by the base, while those in Congress lose face (which is as it should be; the bozos there deserve no credit for pork spending.)
Publius II
The Washington Examiner had an editorial this morning which Captain Ed astutely points out.
President Bush has frequently portrayed many of his most controversial actions as necessary to protect executive branch prerogatives against usurpations of power by Congress. So it is especially curious that Bush has yet to use the most potent weapon the Founders gave occupants of the Oval Office against Congress: the veto.
If Bush is truly serious about protecting the powers and prerogatives of his office, he will set aside his veto reservations and slam-dunk the emergency funding bill if it comes to his desk in anything remotely resembling the form in which the Senate passed it last week. Bush originally asked for $92 billion to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and to assist with hurricane recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast. The House approved the bill substantially as Bush requested.
Things were completely different in the Senate, where the Old Bulls had a field day larding the measure up with nearly $20 billion worth of special-interest earmarks like $700 million for the “Railroad to Nowhere” in Mississippi. A valiant effort by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to remove a dozen of the worst earmarks failed and the thoroughly stuffed final measure was approved by a wide margin. Passage came within days of release of a highly credible survey that said stopping such spending sprees was the public’s top priority.
That is why the conditions could not now be more perfect for a presidential veto. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and 34 other senators vowed to vote to sustain a presidential veto if needed and House Speaker Dennis Hastert declared the $109 billion earmark-stuffed monstrosity “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber.
But between now and the time the final version of the bill arrives on the president’s desk, a conference committee will have to work out the profound differences between the Senate and House versions. Strange things often happen behind the closed doors of such congressional pow-wows, including the quiet resurrection of measures previously declared dead.
Tellingly, the Senate’s GOP and Democratic leadership appointed a bunch of conferees to negotiate with the House who exemplify the very worst of the corrupt spending culture that has apparently infected three-fourths of what was once known as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Now, it looks like more than a few senators prefer that their chamber be the world’s porkiest.
If the House somehow caves on this one and allows the Senate’s earmark-laden emergency spending measure to become the basis of what is sent to the White House, Bush will be the last official in Washington with a chance to control the federal Leviathan’s voracious appetite for tax dollars that come straight out of your paycheck.
If Bush fails to deliver his first veto now, it won’t much matter for the rest of his term what he thinks about executive branch powers, because the Old Bulls in Congress will have all the privileges that count.
The voters have three priorities this year. They want immigration reform (REAL reform, not the McCain/Kennedy band-aid that isn't even a band-aid), they want more 0of the same for the war (KILLINGand CAPTURING our enemies instead of cutting and running and coddling our enemies), and they want an extra tight leash on the spending in DC. It is the taxpayer's money that they're blowing there on worthless projects like the now famous "Railroad to Nowhere." Trent Lott managed to raise the ire of voters when he got extremely upset over the fact that the PorkBusters were watching over his shoulder.
To him I inquire: Who watches the watchers? Bloggers do, pal, and you got caught. Deal with it. Fix it, move on, and shut up.
But no, they're getting increasingly hostile towards efforts made by the public to make sure their hard-earned money is spent wisely. The number one thing sitting on voter's minds right now is fiscal responsibility. Likewise, the president isn't sitting in a great spot either. He has spent five years in office, going into his sixth, and he has yet to veto one lousy bill. and there have been a handful of them that could have been killed that weren't. The Alaskan Bride to Nowhere's initial funding could have been killed. Campaign Finance Reform should have been vetoed. And don't even get me started on the Medicare reform. And the spending bills have simply gone up. Of course that happens when so many feed at the government trough. (Yeah, I've got a few ideas of "reform" for the welfare queens, too.)
But the Examiner's right. If the president wants to protect his executice branch powers, he should start with the mightiest power that a president can wield. Veto the new spending bill. It kills two birds with one stone. First, it stops the bill. It's pork-laden to the hilt, and it should be vetoed. These are the sorts of bills the veto pen has been famous for. There's a difference between bringing federal dollars into the home states of representatives and senators. It's another to flood them altogether. By killing this bill, the president would be sending a message to Congress that "I mean what I say." No more excessive pork spending.
The second benefit of this move would be to fire up the base. In pulling the veto pen out, the base would see that he's serious about keeping some sort of fiscal control over Congress. Let's face the cold, hard facts here. For the most part, Congress has acted as nuts as a person on a million dollar shopping spree. And they have been on one; all on our dime. Now, the base isn't too happy about some of this spending, and we reacted. We started paying closer attention to this sort of monkey-business, PorkBusters was created, and ever since then the venom has flowed from the halls of Congress to the American people. "How dare you question us. We are Congress, and we know best how to spend our money." It's not your money, windbag. It's ours, and we don't like how you're spending it.
So, I do hope the president uses his veto power if the bill comes in larger than he called for. No matter how large over the limit it is, or how small, it should be vetoed on the principle that it's over the amount he asked for. Send a message with that pen, and then send the message directly to the American people. If the people hear that he vetoed a bill based on the pork within it, he'll be celebrated by the base, while those in Congress lose face (which is as it should be; the bozos there deserve no credit for pork spending.)
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 11:11 AM
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