Bush Discovers Fiscal Conservatism For Final State Of The Union
Tonight, in his State of the Union speech, President Bush will warn Congress that bills with too many earmarks on special projects sought by influential members of the House and Senate will get vetoed.
Bush's recent discovery of his fiscal conservative soul stands in contrast to the president who, during six years of Republican control of Congress, signed every earmarked bill that crossed his desk.
When Republicans were in the majority, they were no slouches when it came to using taxpayer dollars to take care of their own. Their profligacy, including financing the Alaskan "bridge to nowhere," was a key factor in the Democratic take-over in November 2006.
The conservative watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste found that during the years of Republican control of Congress, 2001-2006, Bush signed a total of 52,319 earmarks into law at a cost of $121.8 billion.
In fact, since the shift in partisan control, the pattern of earmarking bills had already begun to change.
Reuters, for example, recently reported that in fiscal year 2006, when Republicans controlled both branches, "earmarks were estimated to have grown to more than $16 billion." In the current FY 2007, under Democratic control, congressional earmarks "total just over $9 billion, according to the House Appropriations Committee."
The White House, however, was in no mood to discuss the past. Instead, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters:
The President in the State of the Union will announce unprecedented steps he's taking to reform and reduce the amount of earmarks. The President will say that if these spending items are worthy, Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote.He will state his commitment to veto any spending bill that does not succeed in cutting earmarks in half from 2008 levels, and he will announce that tomorrow -- on Tuesday -- he will issue an executive order directing agencies to ignore any future earmarks included in report language, but not in the legislation, which is traditionally how they end up on the books.
She did not explain how it took this long to come to this position. Neither did Bush, who declared in his speech in the House chamber:
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January 28, 2008 07:20 PM