Line Item Veto - Friend or Foe
President George Bush has yet to veto a single bill given him from Congress. He's threatened a veto a few times, but only to bully Congress to stopping legislation he didn't like.
The last time Bush talked of a veto was a threat to the Dubai Ports Bill limiting foreign ownership of American ports. I have never heard of him trying to limit a single spending item.
Suddenly he wants a line-item veto. His official stance is that this would allow him to cut pork out of spending bills and limit spending.
Call me a cynic. I've never seen Bush worry about our mounting debt. Even despite warnings from the Federal Reserve and
National Association for Business Economics that the federal deficit is harming our economy, he's never pressured congress to limit spending. He even hides line items in his budget like funds for Afghanistan or Iraq, adding them in later as extra spending items.
My guess is that this weakening presidency is looking for new ways to blackmail Congress into passing his pet projects. A senator threatens to vote on an item you're against, Bush merely threatens to block all spending projects for their state.
We've already seen how intimidated Senator Frist is by the Whitehouse. First he's against it, then he's for it. The carrot and stick in this case is Frist's desire to make a run for the Whitehouse in '08. Rove and crowd have clearly signalled that they are supporting George Allen for the next Republican run, yet there's still incentive enough to control Frist.
Imagine if George could sway every spending item and special project for Tennessee. Bill Frist would start supporting the cessation of all stem cell research in a heart beat.
While I'd like to see spending severely limited, the line item veto is a right that Bush should first earn. Not a power granted to beat Congress over the head with.
The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Tamiflu
I was surprised to hear that the US government was planning on moving forward with stockpiling of tamiflu.
The U.S. government ordered 12.4 million courses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu from Roche Holding AG and 1.75 million of Relenza from GlaxoSmithKline Plc, raising the country's stockpile to almost 20 million courses of treatment. The government's pandemic readiness plan calls for enough Tamiflu to treat one in four Americans, or about 75 million people.
But Dr. Koop reports:
Tamiflu and Relenza ... appear to be ineffective against seasonal flu outbreaks and should only be used in the event of a serious epidemic or pandemic, the study authors report in the Jan. 19 online edition of The Lancet.
And even in the context of an epidemic or pandemic, these medications may simply not be enough on their own, the researchers say.
In other words, they may help. But so might chicken soup and hot lemonade my mother's favorite).
The financial magazines think the stockpiling is the greatest news to hit in a while. I'm sure Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is thrilled, but I'm not sure the world health organizations are as happy about spending this money on a drug that may or may not help.
Since people don't have a defense against bird flu it is a dire threat. But since very few cases of species jumping have occured, and none show a predeliction of jumping human to human, I'm more worried about getting the vaccine industry in general up and running better. So let's quit making the rich richer, and make the people healthier.
If They're Not Grateful, Fine Them
George Barisich, a resident of Chalmette, La. and victim of last year's Hurricane Katrina, gave up on assistance from the federal government and had some t-shirts printed in protest. The t-shirts read "Flooded by Katrina! Forgotten by FEMA! What's Next, Mr. Bush?".
I understand his voicing his frustration on t-shirts, frustration with government is how I got into blogging.
George has been selling and giving away the t-shirts, and as the president of the United Commercial Fisherman's Association he's pretty well known in town.
But he made the mistake of giving a woman a t-shirt in a Wal-Mart parking lot that doubles as a FEMA relief center. Now he's been ticketed for selling the t-shirt on federal property, a charge Mr. Barisich denies. He says he gave the t-shirt away. Never mind says the federal government, you owe us $75 and never do it again.
Mr. Barisich is from the hard hit St. Bernard Parish where 22,000 of 26,000 homes were destroyed, and he's lost several boats and his oyster beds.
So while the federal government has been cited by watchdog groups as being almost totally negligent in disaster recovery efforts here, the local residents can be assured that the local Wal-Mart parking lot if safe from rogue t-shirts salesmen.
