Bush threatens another veto

Reuters reports:

President George W. Bush threatened on Tuesday to veto a bill to fund the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina rebuilding if its cost exceeds $92.2 billion, as he weighed in on a heated Senate debate over the bill's rising price tag.

The veto threat, announced in a White House statement on the $106.5 billion emergency spending measure, was aimed at placating conservatives in Bush's Republican Party who are irate over extra items added that they deem as "special-interest" spending.

Bush has not vetoed a bill in his more than five years in office. ...

No, Bush hasn’t, despite often threatening to veto bills which didn’t meet certain criteria.

But whenever a bill he's threatened to veto didn't meet his criteria and came to his desk, Bush has backed off and signed it.

You know what happens to parents, teachers, and anyone else in authority who keeps saying, “If you try that, I won’t stand for it,” and then stands for it.

Parents, teachers, Presidents: it’s all the same. We lose respect for them for threatening and then not following through.

Let’s watch what Bush does on this bill.

As reported by Reuters in the same story, Bush has made clear his veto criteria:

The overall spending in the Senate bill is about $14.5 billion more than Bush requested and which was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.

"The administration is seriously concerned with the overall funding level and the numerous unrequested items included in the Senate bill that are unrelated to the war or emergency hurricane relief needs," said a draft of the White House statement, which was to be sent to lawmakers.

"If the president is ultimately presented a bill that provides more than $92.2 billion, exclusive of funding for the president's plan to address pandemic influenza, he will veto the bill," the White House said.

We’ll see what happens.

My thoughts:

If the bill calls for anything above $92.s billion, Bush should veto it, with no ands, ifs or buts about it.

If he doesn’t, the number of the Americans answering “Yes” when asked, “Do you believe what President Bush says,” will plummet further.

That will be bad for him, us and the rest of the civilized world.

Let's call this bill the "Veto or Else Bill (VEB)”

We’ll follow it to veto or signing.

Fingers crossed!