What absolves Presidents from much of the responsibility for indiscretions with the budget is the absence of a line item veto. It's been called various things over the years but in function it permits the President to cross anything off a bill that doesn't belong on it.
The way Congress puts pork into legislation is to take, for example, a bill on highway spending which most probably want. To that legislation they will add, as line items, additional legislation that will ride with it when the bill is approved. The add-on bits may be anything from golf trips to Hawaii or building a swimming pool for rich bitches in California and isn't required to have anything to do with the original bill. The problem is the President cannot strip this crap off the bill so in signing the legislation the people wants he also approves things they don't want and probably don't even know are on the bill.
This mechanism works in reverse as it gives Congress the illusion of innocence in the budget catastrophe when, in fact, they're the ones responsible for it.
As to which party has the bad guys in Washington: both of them.
The way Congress puts pork into legislation is to take, for example, a bill on highway spending which most probably want. To that legislation they will add, as line items, additional legislation that will ride with it when the bill is approved. The add-on bits may be anything from golf trips to Hawaii or building a swimming pool for rich bitches in California and isn't required to have anything to do with the original bill. The problem is the President cannot strip this crap off the bill so in signing the legislation the people wants he also approves things they don't want and probably don't even know are on the bill.
This mechanism works in reverse as it gives Congress the illusion of innocence in the budget catastrophe when, in fact, they're the ones responsible for it.
As to which party has the bad guys in Washington: both of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment