WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Friday he would use his power to veto spending bills if Congress does not cut the federal budget as he has asked.
In over five years in office, Bush has never vetoed any bill. But he said that restraining spending was crucial to cutting the deficit in half by 2009 as he has promised. "If necessary, I will enforce spending restraint through the exercise of the veto," the president said.
Bush's brief statement from the White House's Diplomatic Reception Room came a day after feuds among rival Republican factions led House GOP leaders to pull a $2.8 trillion budget blueprint from the floor. The collapse of the measure threatens to send Republicans into the fall election season with deficits on the rise and no plan in place to contain them.
In addition, separate talks aimed at extending Bush's previously passed tax cuts for capital gains and dividends stalled. With lawmakers headed home for a two-week recess with few accomplishments to show constituents, the president said Congress must break the logjam.
So President Bush is threatening to use his veto again--like he hasn't used it in the past five years. Who is to say he's going to use it this time? Come to think of it, I'd be pleasantly surprised if he even uses his veto once, at least it would tell me that Bush has figured out how to use a veto.
What is so funny about this story is that Bush is threatening his veto against the Republicans in Congress. This is an inter-party fight between the Republicans in the White House, and the Republicans in Congress. President Bush has been weakened by the constant scandals coming out of the White House--the latest now is the Fitzgerald court filing where Scooter Libby told the grand jury that both President Bush and VP Cheney authorized certain intelligence leaks. And with Bush's poll numbers dropping down to 36 percent, the congressional Republicans are worried that President Bush's coat-tails will drag them down in November.
Of course, that is not the way the Bush White House is spinning this:
Bush took on those, mostly Democrats, who oppose the extension of some of those tax cuts, saying the lower rates have helped create 5.1 million new jobs since August 2003. "The facts have proven the critics wrong 5.1 million times over," the president said.
The budget measure's demise was the result of opposition among moderates and a power struggle between a faction of conservatives and the House Appropriations Committee. Republican unity was essential to passing the plan, since no Democrats were expected to back it.
The episode embarrassed the newly overhauled House GOP leadership, which is trying to demonstrate to voters that it's cracking down on spending.
Yes, it is the evil Democrats who are causing this budget battle--not that it matters that the Republicans have control of Congress. The evil Democrats will not support Bush's tax cuts. The real problem is a battle between moderate Republicans, who wish to see budget cuts reversed on health and education programs, and the hard-lined conservatives, who wish to crack down on social spending while increasing the defense budget and providing more tax cuts. The Republican moderates are worried that without providing some type legislative accomplishments to their constituents back home, that are independent of President Bush's right-wing agenda, they are going to become prime targets for Democratic campaign attacks during the elections. The moderates are trying to distance themselves from President Bush to save their own political hides. And this budget battle is one factor that the moderates are trying to use to show their constituents that they are independent of the Right wing-nuts' marching orders.
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