Bush Ramps Up Budget Battle With Congress
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
NEW ALBANY, Ind. — President Bush, escalating his budget battle with Congress, yesterday vetoed a spending measure for health and education programs prized by congressional Democrats.
He also signed a big increase in the Pentagon’s nonwar budget although the White House complained it contained “some unnecessary spending.”
The president’s action was announced on Air Force One as Bush flew to New Albany, Ind., on the Ohio River across from Louisville, Ky., for a speech criticizing the Democratic-led Congress on its budget priorities.
The White House said the $606 billion education and health was loaded with 2,000 earmarks — lawmaker-sponsored projects that critics call pork-barrel spending — which Mr. Bush wants stripped from the bill.
“Some of its wasteful projects include a prison museum, a sailing school taught aboard a catamaran and a Portuguese-as-a-second-language program,” the president said. “Congress owes the taxpayers much better than this effort.”
It was sixth bill vetoed by Mr. Bush. Congress has overridden his veto only once, on a politically popular water projects measure.
