[Dean's World] Dave Price: What Would A Pig Do?

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
What Would A Pig Do?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1199822888.shtml


   It's odd that we hear so much wailing and gnashing of teeth about
   President Bush's supposedly "unprecedented" expansion of executive
   branch power, but little fuss is made about the new powers [1]Congress
   seems to find for itself:

     Just before Christmas, Congress sent Mr. Bush a $516 billion
     omnibus spending bill stuffed with 8,993 special-interest earmarks.
     To make matters worse, most of the earmarks aren't even in the
     language of the law itself. They were slipped into a 900-page
     "committee report" that represented the wish-lists of the Senate
     and House appropriations committees. Almost no one got a chance to
     read that report before the budget was passed late at night and
     with barely a day for members to review it.
     ...
     What Mr. Bush knows, and Congress doesn't want the taxpayers to
     know, is that the vast majority of the offending earmarks--the ones
     that aren't part of the actual budget law and were instead
     "air-dropped" into the committee report--aren't legally binding.

   Wow, pork that isn't even legal! I'll take waterboarding/warrantless
   wiretapping of terrorists over wasting taxpayers' money on pet
   projects for cronies and lobbyists any day.

     Mr. Bush agreed to sign the budget but said he was disappointed at
     Congress's failure to overcome its earmark addiction. He announced
     he was asking his budget director, Jim Nussle, "to review options
     for dealing with the wasteful spending in the omnibus bill."

   We can only hope.
   If Bush acts firmly here, he has a chance to leave some legacy of
   fiscal responsibility and offer a sop to the minarchists in the GOP
   who have been so sorely disappointed through his first six years. If
   not...

     It will show that the power of the spending lobbies in Washington
     has grown so great that they can blithely ignore the Constitution
     and common sense as they go about their self-interested business.

   Sadly, most of the people who complained Bush is "shredding the
   Constitution" are more than happy to frappé the Founders' words when
   it suits their purposes.
   (Via [2]Glenn)

References

   1. http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110011090
   2. http://www.instapundit.com/