http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/13/bush.budget/index.html

Apparently Bush vetoed the latest spending budget that arrived to his desk from congress. I respect Bush for wanting to exercise fiscal responsibility but it seems he has is priorities a little skewed. We spend $12 Billion a month fighting Bush's Gulf Adventure 2; with the latest pentagon budget topped out at $470 Billion. Yet spending $150billion on the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services that actually has more + benefit on americans is not "responsible." Even if $10 Billion is supposedly pork projects, I am certain in that $470 Pentagon bill I could find some $2000 hammers and $900 toilet seats.

If Bush is sooo concerned about fiscal responsibility and lowering taxes perhaps he should have thought twice or put a better strategy before embarking into the bottomless money pit the Iraq war is causing.

11/13/2007 8:26:07 PM

he seems to think it's cute to play Mr. Fiscal Conservative all of a sudden, just so he can blame the Democratic Congress for spending/wasting money.

It's really nuts.... he signed a 3% increase in DoD budget of almost 1/2 Trillion Dollars, and vetoes a 1% increase for domestic spending..... he's a fucking jerk off

11/13/2007 8:58:29 PM

Was gonna make this thread earlier today. We really gotta get these damn career politicians the fuck out and replace them with people actually interested in serving the public good.

11/13/2007 9:06:14 PM

Another part of his issue was the increase of taxes on the highest tax brackets and the closing of corporate loop holes in a different bill that would partially fund the increased expenses. Honestly I do not see what the issue is. Historically looking the % taxed on the highest income brackets is relatively low

During most of the Reagan administration the highest bracket was at 50%. Hell until 1964 the top tax bracket was taxed at 94%. 35% is relatively low. If Bush wants his war than he should be ready to tax his friends at Haliburton since they are making a large income on the ordeal. I probably would not shed a tear either if the CEO's of Exxon got stuck paying more income tax either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States

11/13/2007 9:27:24 PM

What's the big deal? Congress will just hammer out a compromise and your beloved pork projects will go full steam ahead.

As for the taxes, yes, we could raise taxes, or we could just cut out those pork projects, they both cover about the same quantity of money. Or, I don't know, stop invading other countries. Either way, higher taxes on the rich are not necessary. What we need are lower taxes on everyone else.

11/13/2007 10:55:00 PM

Quote :

"beloved pork projects will go full steam ahead"

oh shove off.
Nobody here has "beloved pork projects". The point is this President has completely backwards priorities and is being a partisan dickwad just for the sake of it. He goes 6 fucking years without issuing a single veto on spending bills under a Republican Congress that was growing the government at a fast a rate as any in recent history, and now all of a sudden he puts on his fiscal conservative hat and puts every bill from Congress under the microscope because they are controlled by Democrats, while at the same time accusing them of harming the troops if they don't pass "emergency" $500 Billion war bills? please.

11/13/2007 11:06:07 PM

[Edited on November 13, 2007 at 11:12 PM. Reason : /]

11/13/2007 11:08:23 PM

Quote :

"backwards priorities and is being a partisan dickwad just for the sake of it. He goes 6 fucking years without issuing a single veto on spending bills under a Republican Congress that was growing the government at a fast a rate as any in recent history, and now all of a sudden he puts on his fiscal conservative hat and puts every bill from Congress under the microscope because they are controlled by Democrats, while at the same time accusing them of harming the troops if they don't pass "emergency" $500 Billion war bills"

100%. I'd just assume not spend money on Iraq or subsidizing lazy americans. The point of the thread was just to illustrate the hypocrisy of our president and the disgust i have at the partisan hacks on both sides running our country.....

11/14/2007 12:48:05 AM

But when was the hypocracy? When he vetoed the bills of democrats for sensible reasons ($10 billion is a lot of pork)? Or the six years he went without vetoing a single republican bill?

Since he ran on a platform of fiscal conservatism, both times, I suggest the hypocracy was the six years without a veto.

Besides, we should rejoice that the veto mechanism of checks and balance has been restored. The president is supposed to confound congress, regardless of who is in charge, thank the founders he is finally doing it.

11/14/2007 12:58:28 AM

Quote :

"hen he vetoed the bills of democrats for sensible reasons ($10 billion is a lot of pork)? Or the six years he went without vetoing a single republican bill?"

that is the hypocrisy. I am sure over the last 6 years there was as I stated before some $2000 hammers and $800 toilet seats in the US budget. While in office and with a friendly congress Bush instituted tax reductions that primarily helped the very upper echelons of the socioeconomic latter while increasing spending to the point where the federal debt is vastly in the deficit. Then when the democratic congress takes over Bush all of a sudden throws on the fiscal conservative hat and vetos spending to which his neo-con base does not directly agree with.

Ron Paul 08'
A return to fiscal and personal responsibility while respecting the constitution to which our founding fathers lost many sons and friends in order to create.

[Edited on November 14, 2007 at 1:08 AM. Reason : l]

11/14/2007 1:02:23 AM

Quote :

"Besides, we should rejoice that the veto mechanism of checks and balance has been restored. The president is supposed to confound congress, regardless of who is in charge, thank the founders he is finally doing it."

There's a clear difference between checks and balances and blatant partisanship. Bush's recent vetoes fall definitively in the latter.

11/14/2007 10:42:09 AM

yeah, but you cain't deny

that "W" sure does look dandy on a bumper sticker

11/14/2007 11:15:22 AM

W
The President

11/14/2007 11:53:26 AM

Quote :

"I respect Bush for wanting to exercise fiscal responsibility"

does not compute because he has exercised NO fiscal responsibility his entire time in office

11/14/2007 1:53:40 PM

420 you disagree with the "child health" veto?

HUR you are too smart to fall for the tax cuts that mostly help the rich line. Of course it does, bc they are the ones putting up the most money. Why is that so hard for people to understand? THe horrible thing was that people who didnt pay any taxes wanted to get some more freebies and actually got a child bonus check. hahah, typical.

11/14/2007 2:20:58 PM

Quote :

"oh shove off. Nobody here has "beloved pork projects". The point is this President has completely backwards priorities and is being a partisan dickwad just for the sake of it. He goes 6 fucking years without issuing a single veto on spending bills under a Republican Congress that was growing the government at a fast a rate as any in recent history, and now all of a sudden he puts on his fiscal conservative hat and puts every bill from Congress under the microscope because they are controlled by Democrats, while at the same time accusing them of harming the troops if they don't pass "emergency" $500 Billion war bills? please."

Let's summarize the various points of agreement here so we can get to the meat of the matter.

-Bush not vetoing squat for six years suddenly discovering his veto pen when it's politically expedient: dickishly hypocritical. Sure. No one will argue that only now discovering the veto power isn't a pretty hypocritical thing for Bush to do.

-Bush vetoing domestic spending while plowing tons of money into the Black Hole that Is Iraq, not to mention the last six years of his administration is, again, hypocrisy.

With those points settled... is anyone arguing that, evaluating these bills on their merits alone and not on the history of this administration that they should not have been vetoed? Anyone? Bueller?

11/14/2007 2:54:27 PM

Excellent strawman to distract from the real point of the thread - that Bush is a partisan hypocritical hack.

Of course, we did already know that, so I suppose we might as well discuss the merit of the veto.

11/14/2007 3:17:16 PM

Jesus tap-dancing Christ.

Which part of this was a strawman, exactly? The part where it is explicitly laid out as a general point of agreement that Bush is acting like a partisan dickwad in finding his veto pen all of the sudden, or the part where we move on from that point to consider the merits of the bill itself in question?

Please. Find the dispute for me. Because I don't see any actual debate to the fact that Bush is basically acting like a dick in only finding fiscal responsibility now at this late hour. So perhaps an actual discussion of say, beyond whether Bush is a partisan dickwad and whether this bill should actually have been vetoed in the first place may be more constructive.

But don't let me get in the way of a good two-minute hate.

11/14/2007 3:31:47 PM

Is this that bill that was purported to be paid for by an extra dollar tax on packs of cigarettes or yet another one?

11/14/2007 3:39:30 PM

Different one. SCHIP had the tobacco tax, this was a budget bill.

11/14/2007 3:40:42 PM

^good arguement chaos. However, your religion and/or sexual preference will be questioned now, since your point cant be.

11/14/2007 3:59:39 PM

Yes, I fully concur Chaos. I have seen no one dispute or even question whether W is a hypocrite. What has been disputed was whether it was wrong to veto this particular bill.

11/14/2007 4:48:08 PM

Quote :

"I have seen no one dispute or even question whether W is a hypocrite"

Perhaps that is significant in itself

11/14/2007 5:21:09 PM

I apologize for the earlier comment, I was partly in jest, partly troll bait for the right wing nut jobs to eat and run with. I thought my second part to that post should have cleared any sort of confusion.

The fact that even the uninitiated to this section focus on a bullshit comment next to a legit comment, just like the rest of us 'trolls', is an indictment that the rest of you aren't some sort of noble non-shit engaging poster. You all do it, too.

Just my 2 cents. Hopefully no one actually replies to this post.

11/14/2007 5:27:21 PM

I think that vetoing a bill that is in line with what has been happening in Congress the past 6 years and then calling a press conference to criticize the Democrats is fucking retarded. The Democrats probably thought that he wouldn't veto it because it's business as usual as far as recent history is concerned.

And I can't see how allowing the War in Iraq to continue while vetoing domestic spending bills can pass as fiscal conservatism. That is also fucking retarded and anyone who defends Bush on his vetoes while simultaneously supporting the War in Iraq is a brainwashed moron.

11/15/2007 12:45:24 AM

I hope they stick to their guns and shut the war funding down.

Shut the mutherfucker down.

11/15/2007 12:48:44 AM

Quote :

"And I can't see how allowing the War in Iraq to continue while vetoing domestic spending bills can pass as fiscal conservatism. That is also fucking retarded and anyone who defends Bush on his vetoes while simultaneously supporting the War in Iraq is a brainwashed moron."

So what about supporting the veto and opposing the war? Again, here's the crucial question - despite Bush being a total tool for suddenly discovering the veto power, was he right to use the veto, if grossly inconsistent?

11/15/2007 12:55:16 AM

His inconsistency makes it unarguably wrong. His inconsistency allows for the questioning of his motives which are obviously to promote partisan strife and not because he really believes in fiscal conservatism. If he really did believe in it, he would have vetoed some of the spending bills the Republican Congress sent to him in the prior 6 years. He did not and suddenly finding the veto pen because Democrats control Congress is a completely and utterly bullshit reason and therefore invalidates any reason he tries to throw at us. If you believe him, you are a bigger tool than he is.

[Edited on November 15, 2007 at 1:13 AM. Reason : ]

11/15/2007 1:12:26 AM

Who said I believe his reasons are anything other than petty partisan posturing?

But that's not my question. Regardless of his motives, was the action the correct one? If not, why? (And, "because he's been wrong about everything else" has little bearing on this matter).

In other words... isn't a broken clock right twice a day?

11/15/2007 1:22:26 AM

It's far too late for Bush to get back into the Konservative's Klubhouse. He did nothing to protect the border, allowed congress to spend, spend, spend, and dragged us into a quagmire of a war.

Hard for me to say..but I think I might've rather not gotten the tax cut- if we could've avoided all of this.

Quote :

"I hope they stick to their guns and shut the war funding down. "

Scuba and I finally find agreement

11/15/2007 1:23:59 AM

Quote :

"Who said I believe his reasons are anything other than petty partisan posturing? But that's not my question. Regardless of his motives, was the action the correct one? If not, why? (And, "because he's been wrong about everything else" has little bearing on this matter). In other words... isn't a broken clock right twice a day?"

You're not listening. It is wrong because his motives behind it are compromised. If he had shown any, any inkling at all of actually caring about what was going on with the budget in the past, then maybe I would agree with this. But all he is doing now is severely limiting the capacity of Congress to spend money on things that may possibly need to be spent on (Bridges and shit are labeled as pork, but that doesn't discredit their need). The truth is, "pork" is a broad term used by politicians to take shots at one another when any money is spent at all. I don't buy that the Democrats were trying to increase spending by some ridiculous amount. If they're spending is in line with what the Republicans have spent over the past several years with no executive oversight, then it is wrong for Bush to veto it right now because this situation arose out of Republican actions and the only reasoning for trying to reign in spending now is that the Democrats are in control.

11/15/2007 1:43:59 AM

IMStoned, why are you so caught up in motives? Personally, I don't care why people do good things, all I care is that good things are done. As such, I do not care why W vetoed the bill, all I care is that vetoing it was the right thing to do.

By your logic, if a serial murderer runs into traffic to save the life of a kitten then the act should be condemned because it is both inconsistent with his past history and he did it with evil intentions in mind (kitten was later used to lure a victim to their death). But this is rediculous, if the individual in question obeyed your principle then more bad things would happen (dead kittens, un-vetoed bills, etc).

Yes, I am using a serial murderer as a metaphore for W, do you have a problem with that?

11/15/2007 2:06:30 AM

^ The only thing I have a problem with is the fact that you used an absolutely terrible analogy.

I'm not entirely convinced that vetoing the bill is a good thing. It might be, but that would require me to look through the thousands of earmarks for "pork" and evaluate the merit of each one... something I am not prepared to do. What I am 100% convinced of is that Bush vetoed this bill because a Democratic Congress sent it to him. I guarantee you that he did not review the document and I also guarantee that there will now be some things that truly deserve funding that will not get it now. That is wrong...

11/15/2007 2:32:02 AM

Are you daft? This is government; not a single penny of that bill was going to be spend today. They are not on the verge of shutting down the government as they did back in 1995. This is just another step of the political process designed to weed out unnecessary spending. Since both parties can be counted on to agree on all spending that is really important, there is never a worry of spending too little.

Heck, for all we know the exactly same bill will be sent back to the president six months from now and he will sign it gladly.

11/15/2007 2:48:42 AM

Quote :

"Are you daft? This is government; not a single penny of that bill was going to be spend today. They are not on the verge of shutting down the government as they did back in 1995. This is just another step of the political process designed to weed out unnecessary spending. Since both parties can be counted on to agree on all spending that is really important, there is never a worry of spending too little."

Are you daft? When was the last time this happened?

Like I said, this is purely a partisan attack and for that reason it is wrong. Partisanship is not usually a productive activity. Checks and balances should be occurring no matter which group controls any particular branch of government.

11/15/2007 3:04:53 AM

Ahh, there is the crux: checks and balances should be occuring regardless of etc. etc. But they do not! The founding fathers hopes to avoid political parties, they failed, we have them. As such, all the checks and balances they wrote into the structure of the government only work when they are controlled by opposition and thus take the form of partisan attacks.

So be it; the check is now working again, praise Jebus, and let us hope that 2008 gives us a republican Congress and a democrat as President.

[Edited on November 15, 2007 at 3:22 AM. Reason : .,.]

11/15/2007 3:20:55 AM

Quote :

"You're not listening. It is wrong because his motives behind it are compromised. If he had shown any, any inkling at all of actually caring about what was going on with the budget in the past, then maybe I would agree with this. But all he is doing now is severely limiting the capacity of Congress to spend money on things that may possibly need to be spent on (Bridges and shit are labeled as pork, but that doesn't discredit their need). The truth is, "pork" is a broad term used by politicians to take shots at one another when any money is spent at all. I don't buy that the Democrats were trying to increase spending by some ridiculous amount. If they're spending is in line with what the Republicans have spent over the past several years with no executive oversight, then it is wrong for Bush to veto it right now because this situation arose out of Republican actions and the only reasoning for trying to reign in spending now is that the Democrats are in control."

I'm listening, you're just making a lousy point. Why exactly is Bush's motive relevant to the merit of whether the bill should pass or not? No one has argued the issue of whether his motive was pure. I haven't failed to address that - I'm arguing his motive is irrelevant to whether or not a bill should be vetoed for its own sake. (Hence, my question about a broken clock.)

On that note, do you even know what the definition of an "earmark" is?

11/15/2007 9:09:58 AM

Yeah, it's a specific project that lies outside the offered budget. Those things aren't necessarily bad, they just lie outside the realm of the general funding. I think the question of his motives is a perfectly valid reason for being angry about him vetoing this bill. Let me flip the question on you. What exactly is it about the bill that warranted a veto?

I just feel that when you do something solely for political reasons, that trumps any possible excuse you may offer because you're letting partisan bickering affect your ethics. I don't care if Bush is a fiscal conservative (which history has shown that he isn't) and he is just now starting to do something about it. This was clearly a shot aimed at the Democratic Congress for political gain and for that reason alone, it is a wrong move. If he hadn't called a press conference to gloat about it and acted so damn snarky like he always does, I wouldn't have nearly as big of a problem with it. But it's clear his underlying motives were the main reason for vetoing the bill and that is my problem with this whole situation. Again, what specifically about this bill was it that made him veto it compared to the past 6 years? History is relevant, you can't claim it's not.

Video of said press conference. He actually chides Congress for investigations into his administration... checks and balances.

Keith Olbermann commentary on a Bush press conference. Pelosi is at the end of it. She's not very articulate, but she does have some decent points.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyrgNOkcrMwhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L--8XORNGIo

[Edited on November 15, 2007 at 11:41 AM. Reason : videos]

11/15/2007 11:28:39 AM

I think you have some confusion about my argument.

History is entirely relevant to whether Bush's actions have any virtue qua Bush. In other words, does this act really reflect as an act of principled fiscal conservativism? Of course not - you'd be an idiot to think that. Do his actions reflect pure motives? Again, of course not - no one is making that argument.

The question as to which history is irrelevant to is whether the bill should be vetoed on its own merits - regardless of who is doing the vetoing.

So, could Bush have performed the right action (assuming the bill was worthy of being vetoed) for entirely the wrong reasons? (Again, no one is arguing that, even if the bill deserved to be vetoed, that Bush was doing it for pure motives). In other words, can a broken clock be right twice a day?

11/15/2007 11:43:12 AM

Quote :

"He actually chides Congress for investigations into his administration... checks and balances."

Absolutely. It was designed to be contentious relationship between the President and Congress. Be glad that he is playing opposition to their behavior and they are playing opposition to his behavior. Congress has probably had several press conferences about their investigations into him; it is only fair for him to have one about them.

It is the political system we have and I like seeing them bicker, it dramatically reduces the likelihood that either side will get away with doing something the public does not want done, because the other will call a press conference and raise hell for political gain.

Now, over the six years neither side played the game, no press conferences to harpoon the other; all that was left was conspiring against the public. This was the broken system, not today’s beautiful bickering. Thank god for the bickering, may it last forever.

11/15/2007 11:53:37 AM

So you would rather see the President be a little bitch about being investigated and claim that Congress is unpatriotic and is doing damage to the country and our security instead of him saying: "Please, i welcome your investigations with open arms. I have nothing to hide. i know that in the end, our country will be better for it. You are surely acting in good faith to the checks and balances principle."

11/15/2007 11:58:29 AM

^ Exactly, he criticizes them for not doing what he thinks should be their jobs (sending them weak bills that he unconditionally approves of) and then criticizes them again for actually doing their jobs (oversight and checks and balances). He is the biggest fucking hypocrite on the planet.

^^^ If you believe that the bill was vetoed based on politics and you have no proof to show that the bill was actually out of line with past spending, then why are you so vehemently defending the veto? Also, the clock thing is just not clicking with me. In response to your particular rhetoric, do two wrongs make a right?

Quote :

"Absolutely. It was designed to be contentious relationship between the President and Congress. Be glad that he is playing opposition to their behavior and they are playing opposition to his behavior. Congress has probably had several press conferences about their investigations into him; it is only fair for him to have one about them. It is the political system we have and I like seeing them bicker, it dramatically reduces the likelihood that either side will get away with doing something the public does not want done, because the other will call a press conference and raise hell for political gain. Now, over the six years neither side played the game, no press conferences to harpoon the other; all that was left was conspiring against the public. This was the broken system, not today’s beautiful bickering. Thank god for the bickering, may it last forever."

There's a difference between bickering and checks and balances. Bickering does nothing, and that is what Bush is primarily reserved to. Checks and balances get nothing done save for the fact that they prevent something else from being done. Bush gets off on bickering and doesn't particularly like the checks and balances unless he's the one doing them. You can tell the Democratic Congress was a rude awakening for him and he takes every opportunity to criticize them even thought it's not warranted which is a very unproductive action to take part in.

[Edited on November 15, 2007 at 12:05 PM. Reason : arrows]

11/15/2007 12:02:37 PM

Quote :

"If you believe that the bill was vetoed based on politics and you have no proof to show that the bill was actually out of line with past spending, then why are you so vehemently defending the veto?"

I defend all vetoes, regardless of what is being vetoed or why. In the same light, I defend all instances of the Supreme Court declaring federal laws unconstitutional, regardless of what the law is or why it was struck down. These are political mechanisms of negative checks involved in making sure any law or bill is as good as it should be, and you should join me a celebrating a return to quality from so many years of crap.

Quote :

"So you would rather see the President be a little bitch about being investigated and claim that Congress is unpatriotic and is doing damage to the country"

Not in those words, but the independence of the Presidency must be defended by someone. If in fact the President's words are over the top then his bull-pullpit will backfire and land himself at the whims of congress. But no, the President should not by default be at the whims of Congress.

[Edited on November 15, 2007 at 12:21 PM. Reason : ^^]

11/15/2007 12:18:24 PM

Quote :

"I defend all vetoes, regardless of what is being vetoed or why. In the same light, I defend all instances of the Supreme Court declaring federal laws unconstitutional, regardless of what the law is or why it was struck down. These are political mechanisms of negative checks involved in making sure any law or bill is as good as it should be, and you should join me a celebrating a return to quality from so many years of crap."

I'm sorry, but this is just retarded. There's no way you can legitimately defend all vetoes regardless of what the veto was against. I'm all for checks and balances, but doing it just for the sake of doing it is counter-productive.

Quote :

"Not in those words, but the independence of the Presidency must be defended by someone. If in fact the President's words are over the top then his bull-pullpit will backfire and land himself at the whims of congress. But no, the President should not by default be at the whims of Congress."

I'd say the opposite is true. Over the past several years, the independence (power, influence) has grown greatly outside the original intent of the Founding Fathers. Any and all actions should be taken to reduce the power he has gained to the executive branch. His bull-pulpit has not backfired because Karl Rove did such a good job of polarizing America. If people really put Bush's policies under scrutiny instead of blindly supporting him because he's Republican he would have been impeached long, long ago.

11/15/2007 12:32:53 PM

Quote :

"If you believe that the bill was vetoed based on politics and you have no proof to show that the bill was actually out of line with past spending, then why are you so vehemently defending the veto? Also, the clock thing is just not clicking with me. In response to your particular rhetoric, do two wrongs make a right?"

I'm defending the veto because I like the outcome. I think other bills should have been vetoed too, and unfortunately were not. I like the fact that this one was, because I like the outcome, even if the logic to get there was completely flawed.

The clock expression can be thought of literally. A broken clock stuck on 12:00 is going to be right exactly twice a day - noon and midnight. Perhaps a different analogy might be the expression, "Even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut."

Granting that Bush is a hypocrite and acting like a hyper-partisan retard, occasionally his bumbling will result in a satisfactory outcome, even when it usually doesn't - such as in this case, where he actually decides to veto something. Not for the right reasons, but the outcome is one I agree with. So, while I see no reason to praise Bush, there certainly is reason to praise the outcome.

11/15/2007 12:49:32 PM

I'll let you off the hook because you referred to Bush as a blind squirrel and a broken clock in the same post.

And because I just don't feel like arguing about it anymore.

11/15/2007 12:55:09 PM

^ We concur. In hindsight this is a matter of preference, your views are no more or less defensible than our views. As such, moving on to other threads!

11/15/2007 2:04:15 PM

I would rather have $10 Billion in pork if it means $150 billion in legit domestic programs. Then spend another $470 Billion cleaning up Iraq for a group of people that would just assume trade one tyrant for another as long as they follow their branch of Islam

11/15/2007 3:00:59 PM

11/15/2007 7:36:11 PM

^^ worst grammar ever, dude. seriously.

set em up --------------->

11/15/2007 7:39:08 PM