Thirty five [tag]Senate[/tag] [tag]Republicans[/tag], worried about excessive government [tag]spending[/tag] and wasteful [tag]pork[/tag], wrote the [tag]president[/tag] a letter (.pdf) yesterday, telling [tag]Bush[/tag] that he should [tag]veto[/tag] the emergency spending bill for [tag]Iraq[/tag] and hurricane preparation — and if he does, they’ll back him up. The number of senators is significant because if the 35 stick together, it would mean the Senate couldn’t override the veto.
It’s exactly why I found this vote so odd.
Defying a White House veto threat, the Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday refused to pare back an emergency spending bill sought by President Bush that lawmakers had expanded to include their own pet projects, which included items as diverse as aid for farmers and money to reroute a Mississippi railroad.
The vote was a direct rebuff of Bush by a number of [tag]GOP[/tag] senators and underscored a growing party rift at a time when the president’s popularity has sunk to new lows in public opinion polls. “I might be intimidated by my constituents, but not the president,” Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said in an interview.
The Senate vote against cutting the $106.5-billion bill was a lopsided 72-26, more than enough to override a veto.
Given a chance to scale back the spending bill to what Bush requested, only 25 Republican senators went along. The same afternoon, however, 35 senators said the spending bill cost too much and should be in line with Bush’s original blueprint.
The result was 10 Republican senators — [tag]Cornyn[/tag] (Tex.), [tag]Thune[/tag] (S.D.), [tag]Warner[/tag] (Va.), [tag]Hatch[/tag] (Utah), [tag]Craig[/tag] (Idaho), [tag]Crapo[/tag] (Idaho), [tag]Martinez[/tag] (Fla.), [tag]Bond[/tag] (Mo.), [tag]Bennett[/tag] (Utah), and [tag]Grassley[/tag] (Iowa) — who voted for the increased spending while also asking Bush to block the increased spending.
I guess they were for it before they were against it.