The Veto Train Keeps Rolling
Tue, 11/13/2007 - 5:02pm
President Bush vetoed a domestic spending bill today, wiping away some $150 billion in funding for healthcare, jobs programs, and education initiatives.
This being Bush's sixth veto, his explanations are coming easier. This one was summed up succinctly at an event later in the day in criticisms about wasteful spending emanating from Congress. The turnaround to that is a new estimate on the total cost of the Iraq War which puts it at about $1.5 trillion. Let me write that number out for you, so can see what it looks like:
$1,500,000,000,000.00
So, Bush accuses other people of wasteful spending, but the spending structure on Iraq is actually making it more expensive than it even has to be, which was already pretty expensive.
Senator Ted Kennedy had this to say:
Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and 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," he said.
And that's really the fine point on it. The party you belong to and whom you vote for says a great deal about your priorities. Today's veto is a perfect example.
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The Moral Bankruptcy Of Contemporary Conservatism
By Patrick M McLeod
Wed, 11/14/2007 - 11:20am
The question I've been asking myself for several years now is when did being a good citizen in this country come to be defined as being a selfish, myopic, intolerant bed-wetter?
That's exactly how the Republicans have been framing it since 1994 and it's worked for them with large swaths of the American voting public. Of course when they talk about it, they use words more like the following:
Selfish=School vouchers, tax cuts for the wealthy and tax breaks for corporations. Because inequality is a myth, right? "Rub some dirt on it and work harder (like I believe I did)."
Myopic="There is no global warming." "Why do they hate us?" "Why does it cost so much to fill my Ford Extinction?"
Intolerant= "Quit oppressing my religion by separating church and state." "Freedom of my religion...not your religion (if it's different from mine)." "If we let homosexuals marry it will ruin traditional marriage."
Bed-Wetters="Please, please, PLEASE listen in on my phone calls, filter my email and track my credit card records...there's scary terrorists out there!" "Is there a waiver where I can sign over my constitutional rights to every authority figure?"
What really gets me is that no matter how low Bush goes, slightly more than a quarter of the country still believes he's doing a good job.
That's profoundly sad.