WulfCry Weblog

Congress has recently expressed interest in approving a line item veto for the preident in appropriations bills. For those unfamiliar with the Line Item Veto, it means the president can go through each appropriations bill and decide which earmarks he likes or doesn’t like. He could then eliminate those he doesn’t like and keep the rest.

Now call me silly (or Shirley), but doesn’t this measure empower the president to practice croneyism (a practice for which he has already demonstrated favor) on an unprecedented level. Picture this: Anyone who supports him gets their earmarks passed, those who voice opposition don’t. Hmmmmmmm.

Supporters claim that this would simply be a tool for him to reign in government spending. But it seems to me (amateur that I am) that there is already a method for him to reign in rampant government spending:

grow some balls!

If the republican legislature cannot reign in spending when it sends in an appropriations bill

veto the whole damn thing.

That’s what prior presidents have done. It seems, though, that the president doesn’t have the balls to veto a single issue this legislature has put up for law. Sure, he’s threatened to over 40 times (although never on a spending bill, oddly enough), but he never has.

If you don’t like a bill, Mr. President, do what every other president has done: veto it and send it back to the legislature to cut the fat. That’s their job. Send a message on spending, for once, and let your croneys in the legislature know that you are a real conservative, not a despiseable neocon, and that you want to hold Congress accountable for its spending practices. Then maybe we Jeffersonian (and Goldwater) Republicans might respect you a bit.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
– P.J. O’Rourke