Bush vows to veto pork bill!

Yesterday in a speech to the Heritage Foundation among the many good points about his efforts to fight the War on Terror with Democrats in Congress acting like there is no war and no need to fight it and his need to have an Attorney General he made the following statement that had me standing and cheering - happily I was not driving at the time I heard it:

Congress also needs to pass the Department of Defense spending bill, as well as the funding bill for our nation's veterans. There are reports that congressional leaders may be considering combining the funding bills for our military and our veterans together with a bloated labor, health and education spending bill. It's hard to imagine a more cynical ploy than holding funding for our troops and our wounded warriors hostage in order to extract $11 billion in wasteful Washington spending. If the reports of this strategy are true, I will veto such a three-bill pileup

When Democrat big spenders in Congress pulled this same stunt with Reagan, Reagan blinked - he went on national TV and said "never again!" just before he went ahead and signed the bill, pork and all. I was extremely disappointed but my TV did survive the night.

President Bush has updated the strategy and has made a preemptive strike. I am not surprised that the MSM has not picked up on this veto threat - they seem to have a fixation on the SCHIP veto and the sequel. This veto being promised holds much more of the taxpayers’ money. The stakes are much higher.

But don't hold your breath waiting for CNN to tell you before the veto happens. Then when it does, they will blame Bush for cutting funds for Veterans and Defense as well as all the HHS and education funds. They will probably even portray many of the pork barrel ear marks as vital, necessary spending.

The problem is of course these ear marks do not get full and open debate, they never have to stand on their own merits. There is never a committee that invites people for and against them to give their views. Unless a pork fighting member moves on the floor to remove one or more of them there is never a recorded vote on them and worst of all they are lumped into huge piles of foul smelling unaccountable spending attached to bills that must be passed to keep the federal government operating.

Democrats in Congress play chicken, the MSM is on their side and the Presidents of the past have let them win or in the case of Democrat Presidents have colluded with them. And yes there are GOP members in Congress who are addicted to the pork as well, but the worst are the Democrats - using the taxpayers money to buy votes and attention (and often times campaign donations) with these earmarks.

Thank you Mr. Bush for taking a stand (which you should have taken in January 2001). The taxpayers thank you!

I do want to apologize to the Pork Producers, I didn't come up with the idea of calling it "pork" and my Great Grandfather was an Iowa hog farmer.