This is our tax dollars at work (AP, emphasis added):
The House overwhelmingly rejected President Bush’s veto Wednesday of a $290 billion farm bill, but what should have been a stinging defeat for the president became an embarrassment for Democrats.
Only hours before the House’s 316-108 vote, Bush had vetoed the five-year measure, saying it was too expensive and gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high. The Senate then was expected to follow suit quickly.
Action stalled, however, after the discovery that Congress had omitted a 34-page section of the bill when lawmakers sent the massive measure to the White House.
That means Bush vetoed a different bill from the one Congress passed, raising questions that the eventual law would be unconstitutional.
In other words, Pelosi and company have to go through this all over again, exposing themselves as spendthrift, pork-loving politicians again, and giving the President a chance to do the right thing again and show voters once more that he, at least, learned the lesson of 2006.
. . . House Democrats hoped to pass the entire bill, again, on Thursday under expedited rules usually reserved for unopposed legislation. The Senate was expected to follow suit. The correct version would then be sent to Bush under a new bill number for another expected veto.
Unfortunately, many Republicans in Congress didn’t get the point, and voted for this again, including my Congressman: Rob Wittman (here’s today’s vote).
This brings back yet another flashback to the Night of the Long Dull Spoons.
Maybe I should move to the 7th CD.
Nooooooooo!
How are we supposed to replace this tax-hiking cipher with a genuine limited-government fellow if the most articulate critic of his (Wittman’s) record bolts the district?!
I find this especially hilarious because back when I worked on the Hill, at the House Administration Committee, one of my jobs was to physically take the actual hardcopy enrolled bills over to the White House for the President’s signature or veto. The Speaker, the President Pro-Temp of the Senate, and the House Admin Chairman all had to sign it certifying that the document was what Congress actually meant to pass, but you pretty much just have to take it on faith that the staff printed it correctly.
I’d hate to be the jackass in the Clerk’s Office who screwed this one up!
I was told that one of my predecessors had screwed up by leaving a couple of (minor) bills on the Metro one time. They were never found. Since then, the bills and the courier have gone to the White House in the back of Capitol Police cruiser.
It was a pretty sweet gig, although it did once require me to see Strom Thurmond in his underwear.
The Jeffersoniad Journal: Down ‘n’ Dirty Edition…
Down ‘n’ Dirty only because I just finished packing for my trip to Orlando (and did you sign Daddy’s birthday card???), and I need to get this done and myself in bed sawing logs – I’ve got to wake up at 5 a.m., and the Kat is NOT a morning person…..
[...] Bush put “Dear Rob” on this one? Thanks to Congressional incompetence, President Bush got to veto the farm bill a second time today (Reuters). No word as to whether he [...]