Is Bush Backing Down on Earmarks?
According to this New York Times article, he is. Excerpt:
President Bush is unlikely to defy Congress on spending billions of dollars earmarked for pet projects, but he will probably insist that lawmakers provide more justification for such earmarks in the future, administration officials said Monday.
If this is true, what a disappointment. If one were to review Bush's legacy on economic issues, you could certainly point to his tax cuts as a tremendous success. Aside from the steel tariff embarrassment, his ability to push for and pass several free trade agreements is also a huge positive. But on spending, he will get bad grades unless he does something bold in his last year in office. Ignoring the earmarks in the omnibus bill and requiring that all future earmarks be included in a bill's text would drastically improve his fiscal conservative credentials.
Let's hope he still hasn't made up his mind on this.
UPDATE: NTU's Andrew Moylan shares my sentiment. He writes, "If Bush fails to pull through on an executive order, his legacy on spending will rightly be told as a horror show for fiscal conservatives: expanded entitlement programs, weakness and vacillation on earmarks, and an unwillingness to veto even the most egregious of spending bills."
Posted at Andrew Roth at 11:28 AM | TrackBack
