Bush veto plan may hurt GOP lawmakers

[Janett_Reno]

Not a rosey picture dude. Even the hated congress is up from single digits. Remember that one liner? That was one of your one liners that was going to put Fred in the White House. It will take more than that. See what Rudy has on his hands? In one sentence he must give his ideas and where he stands and on the other hand he has to try to defend this big spending adm. You know, Chains, W, Ramsfield. This adm should be ashamed of itself for throwing Rudy and the other's down the tubes. The neocons has wrecked the gop party. The party of big spenders and deep pockets but who cares as Haliburton is booming and probably hirring. As far as the title of this article, do you think Chains, Rams and W care about the gop party? They have there own party and going to be living it up in just over a year, so what do they care about the gop party?


Bush veto plan may hurt GOP lawmakers

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071008/...tDAxSj7C1eW7oF

While many Republicans are sticking with President Bush on Iraq, more and more are deserting him on domestic issues sure to figure in 2008 contests.

Loyalty on Iraq may even be making it easier for GOP lawmakers — especially those in tight races — to break with Bush in other areas. It helps let them off the hook. GOP defections are sure to intensify in the coming months.

Bush does not have to face voters again, but a third of the Senate and all of the House will be on the ballot in just over a year — and their votes on issues such as Bush's veto of a bill expanding children's health care could come back to haunt or help them.

This comes as polls show Bush's approval rating in the low 30s and Congress' approval rating even lower. A new AP-Ipsos poll put public approval of Bush at 31 percent and Congress at 22 percent.

Earlier, a majority of Republicans broke with Bush on immigration legislation. Also, they didn't go along with his calls to overhaul Social Security, even when they controlled both houses of Congress.

Now, Bush is trying to reach out to the party's base and re-establish his credentials as a fiscal conservative, beginning with his veto of a bill that would boost federal spending for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by $35 billion over five years. Bush called the legislation part of an effort to "federalize health care."

Bush also has threatened to veto nine of the 12 appropriations bills that make up the federal budget.

"One of the big lessons from the 2006 election loss was that Republicans have let spending get out of control," said GOP consultant Scott Reed. "I think the White House is focused on a Bush legacy that includes getting spending back under control."

Still, said Reed, "In some states, especially in the Senate races, running against the president on specific issues like this will help the Republican candidate."

Economic and libertarian-minded Republican conservatives suggest Bush's overtures are too little too late to help a despondent Republican party bracing for the possibility that the White House will end up in Democratic hands.

Bush's veto of the SCHIP expansion and other veto threats ring hollow because of Bush's past support for expensive programs like the Medicare prescription drug benefit and his failure to wield his veto pen, said Bruce Bartlett, an economist who was an adviser to Ronald Reagan and a Treasury official during the elder George Bush's presidency.

"Because he was so lax earlier in his term, he has no choice but to overcompensate," said Bartlett. "At the White House, they understand belatedly that they have destroyed the Republican party's reputation for fiscal responsibility. And they are trying to play catch-up."

The Republican party has seldom been so fragmented, as a rift expands between traditional economic conservatives and increasingly influential social conservatives.

Some of the harshest criticism of the administration's spending practices has come from former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who wrote in his new book that his fellow Republicans deserved to lose their congressional majorities in 2006 because of runaway spending.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a one-time Democrat who left the Republican party three months ago, complained that U.S. conservatives preach fiscal discipline but "want to run up enormous deficits." He called it "alchemy at best, or if you like, lunacy."

More defections on domestic policy seem likely, especially if Democrats can follow through as they have pledged to do, by sending Bush appropriations measures as individual bills. That shifts the focus from overall spending levels to specific items — such as enhanced port security, boosting funds for medical treatment of returning Iraq veterans and a variety of homeland-security measures.

Bush has claimed the veto-threatened appropriations would amount to about $22 billion more in red ink than he can tolerate.

"Congress has completed the fiscal year without completing work on a single appropriations bill," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. She said Bush would continue to prod Congress to "send the bills to him in regular order, on time, and without busting the budget and without raising taxes."

On the SCHIP bill veto, the division in the party is underscored by the fact that among the bill's most ardent supporters are conservative Republican Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah and Georgia's Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Grassley has called Bush's veto of the children's health care bill "irresponsible" and says he agrees with criticism of runaway spending during the six years when Bush was president and Republicans controlled Congress.

Open dissension among Republicans is stronger in the Senate than the House.

Right now, the House has proportionately more conservatives from safe districts. Also, there is a stronger sense of the importance of hanging together against a Democratic onslaught.

As of now, sponsors of the bipartisan SCHIP bill lack the votes needed in the House to override Bush's veto. The House votes on Oct. 18. But that is only the first of what could be a series of veto fights.

As Republicans get worn down by bad-news polls and disgruntled constituents, "there will be more Republican defections. And Congress may even be able to override a veto," said Norman Ornstein, an analyst who studies Congress at the American Enterprise Institute.

[dude1394]

There is only one party in the US that should be ashamed of itself and imo it's the democrats who've tried so hard to lose to al queda.

With respect to spending, dubya has been very poor. You either correct it or you don't. I'd just as soon he correct it.

[Janett_Reno]

The Democrats does not want to lose to Al Queda. No American does but people want to be sensible about it also. I have told you over and over again, it was no Al Queda in Iraq untill we took over. Now it is.

Sadam was enemies with Al Queda and Iran. Bin Laden hated him and asked the Saudi's to let him get Sadam and he also asked Kuwaitt to drive Sadam back into Iraq and let him defeat Sadam. Instead they backed the USA and imo we did the right thing driving Sadam back home. This is when Bin Laden turned not only on Christians and Jewish people but some of Muslim faith also because he said, that infidels needed to stay off Muslim land.

Sadam was a bad splinter in Al Queda and Laden's side and also Syria and Iran. They was all scarred to death of him. We can't or shouldn't just go create a battlefield for Al Queda to come to us and put inocent people in the way. I was for chasing and getting Al Queda and Bin Laden.

What he is trying to do now is make this a religious war. He has wanted this the whole time. Muslims against Christian and Jews. A world holy war. This is not we are trying to say or do or accomplish but all we are trying to suppose to do, is going after the ones that did what they did in 9/11. Instead we decided to just go after Sadam instead and we have been there ever since.

You must make allies in the middle east like former presidents. You can't go around and saying we will kick butt with anyone that doesn't agree with our policy and we might even invade you to. They take this is a bully and even fear religion. Then if they dig deeper alot will think we would choose our religion over theres on decisions we make. As a people we are not this way as America is made up of all religions.

The muslim faith and people needs to see us as good people trying to do the right things but also standing up for ourself and against the likes of Al Queda and Laden. If we bully more, invade more, we make more hiding places for Laden and Al Queda as he can preach how evil we are and try to turn more countries against us. When he is the real evil one.

The main problem you have with me dude and even some other's in here, is you love this Iraq war and someway you feel this was a good thing to bring Al Queda to us and Iraq and make a battlefield in Iraq. Here is the problem dude, Laden will not send himself to Iraq as he is scarred to and would be a fool to. He is sending suicide bombers and also fighters and as they get killed off, he sends waves and waves more. So in the end you never get him in Iraq. He won't come. Then you have other radical countries causing havoc sending the same into Iraq.

I know you flip flop back and forth like Fred Thompson and will tell me, sadam was a mean man and he killed people, so we had to get him. Ok, we got him and why aren't we out? Then you will flip flop back the other way and tell me we must get Iran, Laden, Al Queda why we are there and keep the people free. The fact is Laden is not in Iraq and he will continue to send Al Queda and really this is the only kind of war he can fight with us dude. He can't beat us in a fire fight.

He has to do a jet eye mind trick with people and religion. He has to draw us in to guard stuff. Where we do not see targets and what to shoot at, while he sends people in to suicide bomb and blow stuff up, undermine the gov and politics, to create a civil war, to keep everybody in turmoil and fighting as he sends his people in to do nothing but try to blow us up. Maybe from time to time some ambushes or hit and run. We take one city over dude, then leave it a few weeks later and then they go back in. It is hard for us to police ever city in Iraq 24 hours a day.

So no, the Democrats and the American people and the Republicans and Independents do not want to lose to Al Queda but they also want to be smart in what they do and also get Bin Laden. You feel creating a battlefield in Iraq was the right way and i feel it was the wrong way and this is one big thing we differ on.

To finish up on, Iran has wanted Iraq, Syria has, Bin Laden wanted it and even some of our allies wouldn't mind having it(other Muslim nations) and what we have done is weakened it for at some point who is the strongest could take it over and influence alot if not all of the middle east. So this means, we must provide military forever and money forever for this not to happen. Now do you see the mess?

[dude1394]

Sure they do janet. Running from the fight is losing to Al Queda's strategic plan. There just isn't any other way to put it.

We can debate it forever and a day, you and I will come down on different sides of whether we should have gone in. But once going in Al Queda challenged us there (as they have been challenging us everywhere) and they are NOW losing. But if the democrats had had their way they would be winning it.

[Janett_Reno]

I think it has been some Republicans and some Democrats that want timelines, dates, because if we do not make any headway or plans it could be so so many more blank checks.

The only problem with this, is if you stay one year they keep engaging you and comming across the border, if you stay 20 years they still do the same. We won the war. It is still some havoc being created by some we defeated but most all of it is comming from radicals from outside the country. If you have help from other countries and other Muslim countries and this havoc keeps happening, then these Muslim nations say why are you comming to kill our brothers? If it is only Americans the radicals have a target to engage.

We went in there, right or wrong we went in. Do you honestly believe this Maliki can run this gov and have an army and him and them stand up for themself at some point or will Iran and Syria have an influence on them untill they jump in bed with both and then the violence stops? These different people across Iraq has to bond together and fight together instead of kill each other because one is not the exact same as the other being sunni, shia or kurd. Then they say coruption is happening inside the police and military and someway they need to nip this in the bud and all Iraqi people be on the same page and help us and work with us. I am talking a big majority.

Now if every deal goes thru Syria and Iran with sweetheart deals with Iraq/Syria and Iraq/Iran to better all three and for them three to become very strong allies as we guard them and keep providing money and man power as Syria and Iran keep getting more and more of a foot hold, this might not be good and in our best interest.

I just do not see an easy way out or an easy fix and i know W says just give us time but many ask how much? This is where they say it can't be a timeline on it, so all of it goes back to a sticky situation.

[dude1394]

All you have to do is look at the amount of suicide attacks that occurred whenever votes were being taken in the US. Al Queda HAD to win this politically because they could never beat us militarily. Their ally in that was the democrats. As well as the american people who wanted to quit.

Now I hate talking like it's over because it's not, but it would have been over if the democrats had had their way.

Sure I believe that Iraq with the US backing them up can survive against Syria/Iran. What you are seeing there IS the iraqi's standing up and kicking al queda out. The only question is how far Iran will go to attack their neighbor.

The reason that the timelines are bad is that this tells the Iraqis (the sunnis and anyone who wants a democratic iraq) that we are going to abandon them, just like we did before when we abandoned them to Saddam.