After 7 years, he finally decides pork is bad?
posted by
Wally
8:30 AM
For the first 6 years of his presidency, Dubya couldn't seem to find his veto pen. Nor could he find the "fiscal conservatism" that he kept talking about. While the Republicans in Congress were dropping a billion here and a billion there into the budget at the last minute, or in the middle of the night, behind closed doors, he never seemed to see a problem with "earmarks". Just ask Ted Stevens (R-AK) about his "bridge to nowhere" for a perfect example of wasteful pork that Dubya thought was just a dandy idea.
Suddenly, with the Dems in charge, he's turned 180 degrees. When the GOP was in charge of Congress, he unquestioningly signed anything and everything they put in front of him. Now that the Dems are in charge, the opposite is the case - no matter how much they compromise, there is practically nothing they can do that he doesn't just reject outright, simply because they are Democrats and he is a Republican.
Now, in an extension of this childish game, he is trying to essentially revive the "line-item veto" - which was struck down by the Supreme Court - by issuing an "executive order".
President George W. Bush will begin "unprecedented steps" to trim billions of dollars earmarked by lawmakers for pet projects, a White House spokesman said.
Bush will issue an executive order tomorrow directing federal agencies to ignore any earmarks included only in committee reports, not in the text of legislation. These steps are unprecedented because they are unconstitutional. Budgeting and funding the government is the responsibility of the Congress, not the President. By issuing this executive order, Bush is overstepping the bounds set by the Constitution that he took an oath to "defend and uphold". He is trying to sidestep the Constitution, again, by turning a signing statement into a line item veto.
Granted, we at DubyaD40 are not against cutting wasteful pork. In fact, we think it's a great idea. We're just pointing out the blatant abuse of power that Dubya is attempting, as well as the standard issue hypocricy to which we've become so accustomed.
Congress approved more than 11,700 earmarks valued at a total of more than $19 billion for the fiscal 2008 spending year, according to the Office of Management and Budget. That's a lot of pork, but we wonder why Dubya didn't take issue with the 2005 budget, which, according to the Office of Management and Budget, contained "13,492 earmarks totaling $18,938,657,000". I wonder what that's worth in 2008 dollars, after inflation.
Oh, and by the way, in the 2008 budget that's making George throw a hissy fit, "About 40 percent of the money was for items requested by Republicans."
So much for fiscal conservatism.
EDIT: I've posted these before, but I couldn't resist doing it again to help illustrate the hypocricy of what Bush is saying.
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