President Vetoes Pork

This morning, President Bush vetoed the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education appropriations bill that was enacted by the Democratic Congress. Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press reports here. The bill contains $10 billion in spending that was not in Bush’s budget. That number is relatively small by federal government standards, but Bush’s veto represents a welcome effort to rein in out-of-control federal spending.
The veto is especially appropriate because the bill includes a number of earmarks that were “airdropped” into the statute in conference and therefore have had no public scrutiny. Altogether, the bill included around 2,000 earmarks. Some examples:
* $1 million requested by Sens. Harry Reid (D-NV), Robert Byrd (D-WV), Tim Johnson (D-SD), and Tom Harkin (D-IA) for the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service and Representative Democracy in Brookings, South Dakota.
* $1 million requested by Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) for the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock.
* $100,000 requested by Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) for O

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