New Budget Rules Are a Disaster

MojoBlog

Fair warning: we're about to wade into some murky budget-related territory here, but these are important issues, so let's go. The House Budget Committee just approved a bill to give the president the line-item veto, which would allow Bush to strip out any piece of a spending bill he didn't like.

I happen to think this is a truly terrible idea, and you can read all about it here and here. The measure is being hyped as a way to let the president control "pork-barrel" spending, but in all likelihood, it will end up being used as a weapon for political retaliation—the president will get the power to nix spending projects in districts of representatives he wants to screw over. A man who orders that mentally disturbed prisoners be tortured so that he can "save face" surely doesn't deserve more power. We can all agree on that. Anyway, it gets worse…

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