Thursday, March 16, 2006

Presidential line item veto

George Will takes an excellent look at the idea of a Presidential line item veto. He touches on what I find to be the two biggest problems with the idea: First, it is probably still unconstitutional, and second, Presidents are just going to use the threat of the line item veto to get Senators on board with bigger spending plans. In a perfect world, I like the idea. I'm too much of a realist to think that Presidents will not use the line item veto as a bargaining chip for more spending, though. Ultimately, the responsibility for reigning in runaway pork spending lay with two groups of people. The first is Congress. The second is with the voter. If we quit rewarding out representatives for the pork they bring home and punish them for it instead, the line item veto won't matter or be needed. It is irresponsible on our part to think that a responsibility that we, the voters, won't take will somehow be taken by a President who is vulnerable to political pressures.

Side Note
In the last transportation bill, a large sum of money was earmarked to build up bike trails in some Wisconsin counties. I haven't checked back in on that, but I don't believe Jefferson county was a recipient of those dollars. You can bet I'll be double checking on that, though. Last year my adopted hometown built a nice bike trail through town, and near the river they built a nice little shelter. I noticed this week they are building another shelter not 3/4 of a mile from the first. It is excessive, and I'm going to be looking into where the funds came from for this redundant and unnecessary shelter.

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