[NYTr] Bush Vetoes education, health care and job training bill

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Who needs public health or education or jobs?  Let the bad times
roll... it's all good for WAR. -NYTr]

The New York Times - Nov 13, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/washington/13cnd-veto.html


Bush Vetoes Major Domestic Spending Measure

By BRIAN KNOWLTON and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — President Bush on Tuesday vetoed a major spending
measure that would have funded education, health care and job training
programs, saying it contained money for too many of the special
projects known as earmarks. But he signed a $459 billion bill to
increase the Pentagon’s nonwar funding.

The veto, on a measure providing $150.7 billion in discretionary
spending for the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human
Services, was announced as Bush was en route to Indiana to deliver an
economics speech in which chastised Congress for “wasteful spending”
and describe it as acting “like a teenager with a new credit card.”

The president’s action guaranteed a new round of wrangling with the
Democrats who control Congress over war costs and clashing domestic
spending priorities.

The president’s criticisms of Congressional spending priorities have
grown steadily more pointed. But in her immediate response to the veto,
the Democratic speaker of the House, Representative Nancy Pelosi,
adopted a restrained tone, saying that compromise was possible but that
the president needed to help if the two sides were to find “common
ground.”

The veto announcement also came as top Democratic lawmakers were
unveiling a new study on the “hidden costs” of the Iraq and Afghan war.
They said that if one included factors such as the higher cost of oil,
lost productivity, and interest payments on money borrowed to finance
the wars, the real costs would nearly double, to more than $1.5
trillion.

The report, from Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, said that
the administration has spent or requested $804 billion to wage the two
wars through the end of 2008.

But experts say it is difficult to project war costs into the future;
and while oil prices have surged from around $37 a barrel in 2003 to
well above $90 a barrel, it is difficult to determine the precise
contributions of the wars to that increase.

The Defense Department measure signed by Mr. Bush includes a stopgap
spending bill that will finance operations of most federal agencies at
2007 levels through Dec. 14.

Congress is still working on a bill to provide a fresh infusion of
money for the Iraq war, while requiring Mr. Bush to begin withdrawing
troops from Iraq.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman
of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, attacked both
the veto and the level of war spending.

“Cancer research, investments in our schools, job training, protecting
workers, and many other urgent priorities have all fallen victim to a
president who squanders billions of dollars in Iraq but is unwilling to
invest in America’s future,” Mr. Kennedy said.

And Representative David R. Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who is
chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, denounced the veto as
“pure politics.”

But Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said that the vetoed
measure exceeded the president’s fiscal target by $10 billion and
included 2,000 earmarks, the special projects that lawmakers regularly
vow to rein in.

“We call on Congress to take out the pork and reduce the overall
spending levels and return it to the president,” Ms. Perino told
reporters traveling with Bush on Air Force One, according to a
transcript released by the White House.

But Ms. Pelosi called the vetoed measure “a bipartisan and fiscally
responsible bill that addresses the priorities of the American people,”
from cancer research to veterans health care. “At the same time,” she
said, “President Bush and his Congressional allies demand hundreds of
billions of dollars for the war in Iraq — none of it paid for.”

“Democrats have offered to work cooperatively with the president to
address the priorities of our nation; we believe our differences are
not so great that compromise cannot be reached,” Ms. Pelosi said. “But
the president must work with us finding common ground.”

The president’s tone, in his speech in Indiana, was hardly conciliatory.

“Congress now sitting in Washington holds this philosophy,” Mr. Bush
said. “The majority was elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility,
but so far it’s acting like a teenager with a new credit card.”

“This year alone, the leadership in Congress has proposed to spend $22
billion more than my budget provides,” the president added. “Now, some
of them claim that’s not really much of a difference — the scary part
is they seem to mean it.”

Describing the Congress as far too quick to pay for new programs by
adding to Americans’ tax load, he said, “New taxes should be opposed
strenuously.”

The president acknowledged the strains facing Americans and the
national economy, led by high oil prices, a troubled housing market and
uncertainty in the financial markets. But he spent far more time
talking about the economy’s underlying strength. “Sure, there’s some
challenges facing us,” Mr. Bush said, “but the underpinnings of our
economy are strong, and we’re a resilient economy.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times