{"id":1517,"date":"2004-04-02T13:56:04","date_gmt":"2004-04-02T18:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1517.html"},"modified":"2004-04-02T13:56:04","modified_gmt":"2004-04-02T18:56:04","slug":"house-gop-defies-bush-over-transportation-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/house-gop-defies-bush-over-transportation-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"House GOP defies Bush over transportation bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bush has no more reliable ally in the country than the House Republican caucus. But when it comes to spending money on transportation projects back home, even it’s willing to stand up to the president.<\/p>\n

A massive highway and mass transit appropriations bill has been working its way through Congress for several months. This is the kind of bill lawmakers love to treat like a Christmas tree, on which they all hang their own favorite ornaments (read: pork project).<\/p>\n

Bush said the most he’d be willing, at the most, to spend $256 billion on the bill. The GOP Senate already blew past that limit, approving a $318 billion version of the legislation.<\/p>\n

The House has been weighing a more modest bill with a $275 billion price tag, less than the Senate’s but more than the White House’s. Many House leaders on both sides of the aisle thought, in light of the Senate version, they were showing some real restraint in an election year.<\/p>\n

The White House didn’t see it that way and Bush threatened to veto the bill earlier this week. Then a funny thing happened: the Republicans grew recalcitrant and decided to defy Bush, effectively daring him to veto their bill. Ignoring Bush’s threat, the House passed the bill<\/a> easily this morning.<\/p>\n

The House on Friday gave emphatic support to a $275 billion highway and transit bill, voting for the prospects of new roads and jobs despite an administration warning that the bill was too expensive and would result in a presidential veto.<\/p>\n

The 357-65 vote sends the long-delayed six-year spending bill to a House-Senate conference and an election-year showdown with the White House over federal spending, jobs and the deficit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are a couple of interesting angles to this, including GOP hostility to Bush’s veto warning and what Bush will do now that the threat has been made.
\n
\nFirst, House Republicans seemed emboldened<\/a>, not intimidated, by the White House.<\/p>\n

Rather than forcing House Republicans into line, as in the past, the White House’s veto threats provoked an unprecedented revolt by congressional Republicans. <\/p>\n

“Republicans are agreed on taxes. They’re not agreed on spending, and that’s a real problem,” said Allen Schick, a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Affairs…. “In the minds of congressmen, especially Republicans, they’ve met the president more than halfway, and he’s still sticking it to them,” Schick said. “The president picked the wrong fight, in [their] eyes.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is unusual. Bush’s veto threat seemed to make Republicans more anxious to vote for the bill, not less. This is a surprising display of backbone for a House that’s acted more like a rubber stamp than an independent branch of government.<\/p>\n

So what does Bush do now? That’s not an easy question.<\/p>\n

Bush hasn’t vetoed a single bill since taking office. Only three presidents in U.S. history have served a full term and not vetoed anything (Adams I, Jefferson, and Adams II), and if Bush keeps his streak alive, he’ll be the first in 176 years to do so.<\/p>\n

If Bush doesn’t veto, and he agrees to the House version, he’ll look weak. Bush drew a line in the sand and told lawmakers not to cross it. They did. If Bush signs the bill anyway, it’ll look like Congress effectively pushed him around and that he’s unwilling to stick to the commitment he made. Those of us who keep track of Bush’s multiple flip-flops will have a fun new addition.<\/p>\n

But let’s say Bush sticks to the threat and uses his veto pen, saying, “I warned Congress not to spend too much and they have ignored my advice.” What then? It’ll return to Congress for reconsideration. Could Congress override Bush’s veto? You bet it could. Look at today’s vote total again — 357 to 65.<\/p>\n

When a president has his veto overridden by members of his own party — in an election year — it’s a terrible embarrassment. It would be awkward enough for a Republican president to veto a Republican Congress’ bill, but it’d reach a whole new level if the Republicans turned around and overruled the guy that’s supposed to be their national hero.<\/p>\n

Before any of that can happen, the House and Senate will go to conference to work out their differences. Expect the White House to be closely involved in those negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bush has no more reliable ally in the country than the House Republican caucus. But when it comes to spending money on transportation projects back home, even it’s willing to stand up to the president. A massive highway and mass transit appropriations bill has been working its way through Congress for several months. This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}