Veto Threatened on Highway Bill (Mr. Bush's 1st Veto - The Pork Stops Here!))

NY Times ^ | 4/1/04 | Carl Hulse

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON, March 31 — Taking a cue from Ronald Reagan, President Bush is threatening to cast his first veto on a popular highway bill filled with pet projects of Congress members eager before the election to win highway money for constituents stuck in traffic back home.

Mr. Bush's insistence that the House and Senate hold down road spending is turning the highway legislation into a test of whether he and Congressional Republicans are serious about their promises to restrain the deficit.

But lawmakers are determined to press for 3,000 projects to benefit the voters back home, from the usual bridge, highway and road-widening plans to things like $3.5 million for horse trails in Virginia; $1.5 million for the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.; $1 million for a transportation network for the Army Infantry Museum in Columbus, Ga.; and $5 million for a parking garage in downtown Bozeman, Mont.

There is also $1.7 million for improvements to Guy Lombardo Avenue in Freeport, N.Y., honoring the bandleader known as Mr. New Year's Eve.

When Mr. Reagan was president, embroiled in the Iran-contra affair, he took on Congress over highway spending in early 1987, declaring that the bill "represents a failure to exercise the discipline that is required to constrain federal spending, especially pork barrel spending." But his veto was easily overridden, proving a Washington rule: never stand between a member of Congress and asphalt.

This time, White House officials insist that Mr. Bush, who has yet to veto any bill, is serious about scuttling any highway measure with a price of more than $256 billion. The current House proposal is $284 billion, the White House estimates. Some lawmakers had initially pushed for a bill that would have increased that figure by almost $100 billion.

"Thirty billion, when you are cutting the deficit in half in five years, is real money," said Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman.

But the president's approach is causing trouble on Capitol Hill, where rank-and-file Republicans staged a revolt Wednesday over the amount of money in the bill and the way it is spread among the states.

Instead of taking up the measure, lawmakers gathered in heated meetings around the Capitol trying to resolve their differences on for what many of them is the most important legislation of the year.

"We really protested," said Representative E. Clay Shaw, Republican of Florida, who said his state would lose more than $800 million the way the measure was now written. Saying that Republican lawmakers in his state were united against it, Mr. Shaw added, "We can kill the bill."

Critics of the bill said it was embarrassing that Congress could not be satisfied with the $256 billion acceptable to the president over six years, considering that it was still a double-digit increase from the last highway measure.

They noted that for all the haggling over cost, there were the more than 3,000 specific hometown projects totaling nearly $10 billion in the measure. It is a far cry from when Mr. Reagan vetoed the 1987 measure; he complained about 152 home-district projects in that bill.

"We seem to have lost all shame as far as spending goes," said Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona. "The president ought to be itching to veto this thing."

Highway bills are traditionally a favorite vehicle for winning money for pet projects — and this bill is no exception. Lawmakers and those who follow the measure say the money is distributed under a rough pecking order.

"I can't absolutely quantify it, but what I see here is if you are on the committee you get a lot of money, if you are in leadership you get a lot of money and if your seat is at risk, you get a lot of money," said Keith Ashdown, a spokesman for Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Mr. Ashdown called the "earmarking" of special projects in the measure "the worst we have ever seen."

But Representative Sherwood L. Boehlert, a Republican from upstate New York, makes no apologies for the $50 million worth of projects for his district that he managed to get into the current version of the bill.

[NormsRevenge]

April Fool .. *-\ ?

[NormsRevenge]

"We seem to have lost all shame as far as spending goes," said Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona. "The president ought to be itching to veto this thing."

[Bikers4Bush]

"This time, White House officials insist that Mr. Bush, who has yet to veto any bill, is serious about scuttling any highway measure with a price of more than $256 billion."

But never mind the fact that the pesky BS number that they threw out there for the medicare scam was off by well over 100 billion.

It would be unwise for them to choose to veto this bill when they have allowed every other government bloating bill to pass and have even actively supported the largest.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I think this probably should be the time to start speaking with the Leahy's, Levit's and Rockefeller's of the world.

"Senators, you are asking for alot of money for your hometown pet projects. About 30 billion if these numbers are right. Now we can do this a couple of ways. I can veto the whole thing, have the Reps go along with it and go public. I can just cut out all your states money, hell I am not going to win your states anyway. Or you can change your minds on Estrada and a couple of other appointments and everyone gets a buck. But I still want it at 256 bil."

IMHO I think that something like this kind of gentle persuasion will be needed.

[mabelkitty]

Voinovich the hypocrite can't bring home the pork.
He'll actually have to campaign to keep his undeserved job.

[Moonman62]

What a load of manure. GWB knows that any token veto on a highway bill will be overridden in a about two seconds. When it comes to government sprawl and overspending, the damage has already been done.

[jwalsh07]

It would be unwise for them to choose to veto this bill when they have allowed every other government bloating bill to pass and have even actively supported the largest.

This is a no brainer. Veto the bill.

[Bikers4Bush]

A no brainer would have been to not support or to veto that medicare scam.

This is anything but.

[johnb838]

It would be unwise for them to choose to veto this bill when they have allowed every other government bloating bill to pass and have even actively supported the largest.

No. You are wrong. The President had his reasons for allowing the deficit, primarily to keep us out of a depression following 9-11. It worked and now it's time to get a handle on the spending. He's taken enormous heat for allowing spending in the last three years, I expect him to take a lot more heat when he announces that the party's over. But he will, he is a mensch.

[Bikers4Bush]

Really? So you think it's smart to push through the largest increase to an entitlement program in history while issuing a guarantee that it won't go over 400 billion then turning around a month later and saying that it's going to be more in the neighborhood of 520 billion and THEN turn around and threaten to veto a highway bill over a 28 billion dollar difference between what you want and what is being proposed?

You think that's smart do you?

I think it's idiocy. There are a number of things he SHOULD have vetoed that he didn't. To threaten to use the veto over this is stupid especially when the administration screwed up to the tune of 120 billion on the medicare crap.

[looscnnn]

"President Bush has threatened to veto the measure as too costly at a time that he and Congressional Republicans are supposed to be serious about holding down the federal deficit." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/politics/02CND-ROAD.html?ei=5006&en=11292d7e8695a2d6&ex=1081573200&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=
Is that during re-election time? How about doing that all the time? That is part of your job.

[aShepard]

I wonder whether it will include a Robert Byrd bridge; a Robert Byrd tunnel; a Robert Byrd expressway; a Robert Byrd metro transit system, a Robert Byrd causeway; or all of the above??

[goldstategop]

I'll believe a veto when I see it.

[Blzbba]

There's a first time for everything, even when it comes to Bush casting his first-ever veto. I'm not holding my breath either though. Bush is a fiscal liberal.