They don’t have time to start debating this bill in the Senate and try to take out all the pork and the earmarks. By the way, I’ve been looking at this bill a little bit. It’s the largest tax increase in American history, in parts of this bill. There’s stuff in this bill that goes beyond just subsidizing a spinach farmer and other things. They’ve thrown all kinds of garbage in this thing. But there isn’t time to try to strip all that out before you get a Senate vote on their version and go to conference. The whole idea here is to pass this thing as quickly as possible. Just get it out of the Senate. Get it to conference and get everybody agreeing on it as quickly as possible. Send it up to the White House for the promised veto and just relegate this thing to the ash heap.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Michael in St. James, Missouri, not far from St. Louis, we’ll start with you today on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Hey, this funding bill for the war, all this pork barrel, it sounds just exactly like what was going to happen with the campaign finance reform bill of a few years back where Bush was counted on to veto it and he did not. I don’t like that at all.
RUSH: Well, I understand your sentiments on this: ‘Fool me once, yeah. Fool me twice?’ that old saying. But the president went out there last Friday, Michael, and he laid it on the line. He said this bill has no chance of becoming law. He pointed out that the victory margin in the House was by one vote (218 is the minimum you can get for victory) and he went out and he said there’s no chance this bill is going to become law. He pointed out they don’t have a veto-proof majority in either of the two houses, the House or the Senate, and he was pretty much inviting the veto. He was not nearly that forceful on campaign finance reform. In the campaign he led everybody to believe that he was against it, but as president he never invited the bill so he could veto it.
Snerdley tells me we have a lot of calls echoing the same sentiments, Michael, that you’ve raised here, but in this case, I would be stunned if we had a repeat of campaign finance reform. I don’t think that’s in the cards. This is Bush’s issue. This is his defining issue. This is what he’s built legacy and his protection of the country on, and he’s not going to allow this thing that sets a date to get the troops home in March of 2008. He’s simply not going to do it. I wouldn’t be afraid of it this time. The reason for this, folks, is that the money is needed to keep the surge going and a number of other things going. I think not only should the Senate get this thing passed as quickly as they can and get it up there for a veto, I think when the president vetoes this, he ought to do it on a nationwide nighttime appearance from the Oval Office.
See, this is the point. He needs to do it with the whole country watching and he needs to go out there and explain it and teach it and tell everybody exactly what was in this bill, not just the withdrawal date, March 8, not just the $24 billion of pork in there for spinach and other people, but the tax increases. There are things in this bill, folks, that nobody knew until they started looking at it. Well, there’s $100 million in this bill to spend on the two party conventions. A hundred million dollars to fund the two party conventions this summer, in addition to everything else. President Bush has a great opportunity here when the veto arrives, to do a great educational seminar. He probably won’t do it prime-time. I wish he would, but whenever, it’s going to be a great opportunity to tell the American people what was in this.
By the way, speaking of all of this. ‘In one of the more unusual proposals to emerge in the Senate debate on Iraq withdrawal, Sen. Mark Pryor wants to keep any plans for bringing troops home a secret. The Arkansas Democrat is a key holdout on his party’s proposal to approve $122 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while setting a goal of March 31, 2008, for winding up military operations in Iraq. Unlike the plan’s Republican opponents, Pryor wants a withdrawal deadline of some kind. He just doesn’t want anyone outside the White House, Congress and the Iraqi government to know what it is.
”My strong preference would be to have a classified plan and a classified timetable that should be shared with Congress,’ Pryor said yesterday. A public deadline would tip off the enemy, ‘who might just bide their time and wait for us to leave,’ he said. ‘Then you’d have chaos and mayhem and instability.” Mark, Senator Pryor, how long do you think it would take for this date to leak? This is absurd. A senator is actually suggesting a piece of legislation that has a secret withdrawal date that only the White House and the House and Senate know about — which would bring about his genuine fear because the date would leak out.
Members of Congress know it and it’s going to stay a secret? Fat chance!