Bush water bill veto overridden

posted at 1:17 pm on November 8, 2007 by Bryan
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He got blown out in both houses of Congress, 79-14 in the Senate and 361-54 in the House.

The bill, the first water system restoration and flood control authorization passed by Congress since 2000, would cost $11.2 billion over the next four years, and $12 billion in the 10 years after that, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Flood protection projects along the Gulf Coast, including 100-year levee protection in New Orleans, would cost about $7 billion if fully funded. The bill approves projects but does not fund them.

Some of Bush’s most ardent allies argued for the override. “This bill is enormously important, and it has been a long time coming,” said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., whose state was hammered by Hurricane Katrina two years ago.

The bill “is one of the few areas where we actually do something constructive,” said Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott. R-Miss. What Bush sees as pork barrel items, Lott said, “are good, deserved, justified projects.”

“Almost every president opposes this type of bill,” he said.

As usual with the AP, its account captures part of the story. Here’s the other part, that explains both the veto and the override.

The Senate passed a $14 billion version of this spending bill in May, which funds federal water projects, and sent it to conference with the House. The same bill emerged from conference last week, and passed the Senate overwhelmingly yesterday, as a $23 billion spending bill. That’s a 64-percent increase in just four months — sounds like a wildly successful hedge fund’s return, not the growth of a bill that authorizes spending for the federal government.

Where did all the extra money come from? Much of it is earmarks. But some of it — between $1 billion and $2 billion — comes from new “earmarks” that were not voted on in the original House or Senate versions of the bill. These were added quietly in conference committee, when the two houses negotiated the final bill they would both pass. There were at least 20 such earmarks added in conference to WRDA, which authorizes spending on projects for the Army Corps of Engineers. Because they were added in conference, neither the House nor the Senate has any chance to debate or amend them.

It’s pork. The president, after 7 years of profligate spending, decided to exercise some fiscal restraint. The Congress, addicted to pork, wouldn’t let him.

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