According to the Wall Street Journal President Bush will sign an executive order eliminating much of the earmarks in the budget…the FY 2009 budget:
We’re told he will tell Congress that he will veto any fiscal 2009 spending bill that doesn’t cut earmarks in half from 2008 levels. He will also report that he is issuing a Presidential order informing executive departments that from now on they should refuse to fund earmarks that aren’t explicitly mentioned in statutory language. This is progress, though frankly less than we had hoped because Mr. Bush’s executive order will not apply to the fiscal 2008 spending bills that passed late last year. Congress endorsed 11,735 special-interest earmarks worth $16.9 billion in fiscal 2008, yet thousands of these weren’t even written into the actual budget bills. Instead, they were “air-dropped” at the last minute into nonbinding conference reports that serve as advice to federal departments about where to allocate funds. This ruse means that earmarks are able to avoid scrutiny from spending hawks on the House and Senate floor.
We argued in December that Mr. Bush had the legal authority to refuse to fund those this year as well. But in the end we hear he acceded to the argument from Capitol Hill that because he hadn’t made a specific earmark veto pledge last year, he would be sandbagging Congress after the fact and courting its wrath.
The President had, however, said the following last year: “even worse, over 90% of earmarks never make it to the floor of the House and Senate — they are dropped into committee reports that are not even part of the bill that arrives on my desk. You didn’t vote them into law. I didn’t sign them into law. Yet they’re treated as if they have the force of law. The time has come to end this practice.” Members in both parties whooped and hollered in approval, even as they could barely contain their self-knowing grins.
Is this part of that “legacy thing”? Ya know, Mr. Bush, had you done this oh, I don’t know, seven years ago, your legacy may have been guaranteed. You could still have a Republcian Congress and be setting up the next Republican nominee for a sure fire win in November. Instead, we are in all likliehood looking at a liberal president.
H/T – Captain’s Quarters