Nah, Nope, Not Quite

Is this possible? Bush is two for three on recent legislation making its way through Congress.

He’s dreadfully wrong on the new GI Bill sponsored by Jim Webb. He’s right on the still-in-negotiations bills on housing (these will come back in another form, for sure).

And now, rightly, he’s threatening to veto the huge Farm Bill that just passed the House with a veto-proof margin. This bloated clunker continues America’s policy of subsidizing wealthy farmers for political gain. From the New York Times story by David M. Herszenhorn:

“Mr. Bush had sought an adjusted gross income limit of $200,000 above which farmers could not qualify for any subsidy payments. The bill passed by the House, however, allows farm income of up to $750,000 and nonfarm income of $500,000 per individual.”

What? A farmer whose gross income is $500K is getting a welfare check?

Quoth Bush: “‘Today’s farm economy is very strong, and that is something to celebrate,’ he said. ‘It is also an appropriate time to better target subsidies and put forth real reform.’ The bill, he said, ‘spends too much and fails to reform farm programs for the future.’”

Never mind that the only reason he’s opposing this bill is because he’s not running again, he’s right. Shockingly right. The bill does include $10.3 billion for food stamps, rural development, and land conservation programs. But, frankly, those items should just be in a separate bill.

This bill is an inevitability, though it shouldn’t be. Here’s a supporting editorial from Investor’s Business Daily.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 12:50 pm and is filed under 08 Election, Congress, Inflation, Politics, The Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.