Nancy Pelosi Chastises White House for Vetoing Education Appropriations Bill
"The President again vetoed a bipartisan and fiscally responsible bill that addresses the priorities of the American people: education for our children, assistance in paying skyrocketing energy costs, veterans' health care, and other urgent health research on cancer and other serious medical problems. At the same time, President Bush and his Congressional allies demand hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq -- none of it paid for. Democrats...believe our differences are not so great that compromise cannot be reached...on behalf of the American people," stated Pelosi.
According to the White House, the reason for the veto is that the bill is chock full of pork and violates the Democratic majority's boast of introducing fiscal responsibility into government spending. The bill would authorize the spending of $606 billion.
White House Secretary Dana Perino, flying aboard Air Force One with the President, announced today that the bill has over 2000 pieces of pork attached to it and overshot the White House budget by $10 billion. The President is going to demand that Congress remove the pork so that he can then sign the bill.
The President did sign the $471 billion Pentagon appropriations bill, which has Democrats fuming.
The White House and many Congressional Republicans say that the war effort against terrorism has to be the nation's top priority and therefore the money spent on the war is fiscally responsible.
Democrats have drafted a war spending appropriations bill with strings attached. The Bush Administration will be forced to begin pulling out troops from Iraq immediately and to complete the entire process by December of 2008, just before Bush leaves office, or he will not receive his requested funds.
However, the President is almost guaranteed to veto the bill and the Congress is likely not to get the override votes it needs to overturn the veto, as too many Republicans in the Congress do not approve of the Majority's "taking hostage" of the American military to push a "pet agenda" and are convinced the war is a good and necessary effort.
Last week, Republican Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota told local reporters that the bill was guaranteed to receive a Presidential veto, and therefore he was working to remove and make stand alone a veterans-military construction appropriations bill so that it would be signed into law by the President.
Original Newsire Source:
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Published by Brant McLaughlin
I am a Writer driven by endless curiosity and a deep desire to waste time creatively. View profile
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2 Comments
Post a Commentgreat article Brant. Nancy Pelosi just doesn't get it. Does she really think that people cant access the proposed bill and see what they are doing?
Great article! I think that Nancy Pelosi is irrelevant now. She had her chance to shine in the beginning, but due to the lack of getting anything accomplished, she is in a weakened state and will probably be put on the back burner by the Democrats. Too bad, she was made Speaker of the House because it was believed that she could make real head way against the Bush administration, but that does not look like it will happen.