Posted on 11/08/2007 9:54:32 AM PST by SmithL
President Bush suffered the first veto override of his seven-year-old presidency Thursday as the Senate enacted a $23 billion water resources bill despite his protest that it was filled with unnecessary projects.
The vote was 79-14 to pass the bill. Enactment was a foregone conclusion, but it still marked a milestone for a president who spent his first six years with a much friendlier Congress controlled by his Republican Party. Now he confronts a more hostile, Democratic-controlled legislature, and Thursday's vote showed that even many Republicans will defy him on spending matters dear to their political careers.
The bill funds hundreds of Army Corps of Engineers projects, such as dams, sewage plants and beach restoration, that are important to local communities and their representatives. It also includes money for the hurricane-hit Gulf Coast and for Florida Everglades restoration efforts.
The House voted 361-54 to override the veto Tuesday. Both votes easily exceeded the two-thirds majority needed in each chamber to negate a presidential veto.
The last such veto override happened when Congress dealt President Clinton the second of his two overrides in November 1998.
Bush vetoed no bills during his first five years in office. He has since vetoed a stem cell research bill twice, an Iraq spending bill that set guidelines for troop withdrawals, and a children's health insurance bill. House and Senate Republicans managed to sustain those vetoes. But he had vehemently objected to the water bill.
But they broke ranks on the Water Resources Development Act, or WRDA, which Bush vetoed on Nov. 2, calling it too expensive.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Stinky, smelly old pork.
That cesspool up on Capitol Hill is in dire need of a good flushing...
‘The vote was 79-14 to pass the bill. Enactment was a foregone conclusion, but it still marked a milestone for a president who spent his first six years with a much friendlier Congress controlled by his Republican Party.’
Actually, this was the inevitable conclusion. The President allowed the ‘friendlier Congress controlled by his Repubican Party’ to spend money like a drunken sailor on shore leave (Navy 77 - 81 so I can say this with accuracy) and now that he’s unable to bribe members of his own party with pork, he’s trying to act ‘responsible’.
You should have known better, Dubya, six years ago when you began down this path in the first place.
Compassionate Conservative my ass.
If anyone knows how to rebuild a swamp it would be a politician.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
You got that right, my friend.
They’re not even ashamed. I have come to realize that the people we send to Congress aren’t nearly the best and brightest. They are the mediocre people I loathe dealing with in business...or, they are people who don’t have a clue.
Democrats send the best they have into politics. Republicans send those who have the time. None of them are worth much of anything.
Anybody got a list of the unnessary pork projects?
It would be, if not for the other things Dubya has done across the board that simply were dumb as hell.
Like trying to co-opt Teddy ‘Drown Em!’ Kennedy, for starters.
Nailed it.
‘You mean when he put on the knee pads for Ted? I will never forget the look on Ted’s face as he smiled in triumph and Bush looked like such an ass.’
Same here.
The Bush gambit with Kennedy reminds one and all you cannot protect somebody from themselves.
Idiot posters here on FR will kvetch about Bush (”shoulda done more!” “deserves what he gets”), but he did the right thing with the veto of this pork-laden bill.
Let’s see some vitriol aimed at Democrats, instead!
They can close the barn door now. The horses are all gone, dead and buried.
I agree but GW deserves some blame for trying to deal with the devil dims early on and now it is biting him.
Pork, maybe, but the checkbook was open for 6 years.
This was signal that the Lame Duck is severely lame. Congresscritters have more at stake now — many of them will be back after GW is retired. They will not let him upset their gravy train.
GW may have found the veto pen, finally, but he better be more diligent in using it. This override signals that Congress isn’t going to let him rule by veto, with the nearly 20 veto threats he has made since the 2006 election.
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