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House Dems counterattack Bush’s threats to veto appropriations bills |
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By Mike Soraghan
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Posted: 06/20/07 07:22 PM [ET] |
House Democratic leaders yesterday lashed out against President Bush’s slew of veto threats on the eve of his second veto of an embryonic stem cell research bill.
President Bush has sent 28 veto threats since Democrats took over Congress, including five since the beginning of June. That figure includes some repeated threats on Iraq spending bills and threats on bills that didn’t pass.
“All of a sudden there’s been a veto threat a day,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) “We’ve had a surge in Iraq and a surge in veto threats. Congress would appreciate a surge in bipartisanship.”
Democrats say Bush is looking for confrontation to satisfy a conservative base irritated that he accommodated the carefree spending of a Republican-led Congress.
They say that Bush routinely agreed to Republican spending bills that exceeded Bush’s requests by as much as $7 billion. Now, they say his repeated veto threats stem from Democrats’ plans to spend $22 billion more than his request.
“The money we’re talking about here is two months spending in Iraq,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Percentage-wise, compared to the federal budget, he said, the difference is infinitesimal.
Gearing up for the fight, Democratic leaders have armed their members with packets explaining the merits of the bills Bush is threatening, hoping to persuade voters and local media outlets.
In advance of today’s expected stem cell veto, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has started petition drives with personal appeals from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), whose daughter suffers from juvenile diabetes.
“My daughter and millions of Americans like her pay a price every day for President Bush’s obstructionist tactics and his promise to use his veto pen,” DeGette wrote to supporters.
Bush and other Republicans believe that embryonic stem cell research encourages the destruction of human life in the form of embryos.
Democrats said they’ve already backed Bush off on the military construction spending bill by adding in the largest increase in the history of the Department of Veterans Affairs and staging an endorsement photo op with Pelosi and the heads of nearly every major veterans group.
Bush didn’t specifically threaten to veto the military construction bill but he had threatened to veto any spending measure that came in higher than his request, which it does. But when the White House issued its statement of administration policy on the military construction bill veto, Bush left out a veto threat, but demanded cuts elsewhere to make up for the extra spending on veterans.
The next fight is over the homeland security bill. Democrats are stressing that the bill would pay for 3,000 new border patrol agents.
But Bush says it spends $2.1 billion too much. Democrats had been hoping to pass the bill by a veto proof margin, but it passed 268-150 last week, falling well short of the 290 needed for a veto-proof majority.
Some appropriators say Democrats should just send the spending bills to Bush and let him suffer the consequences of nixing popular programs.
“We put stuff on his desk and we let people judge it,” said Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.). “If it’s because [it’s too pricey], what about the past six years?” |
