For the past eight years President Bush’s Republican administration has overseen, even encouraged, a massive increase in government spending. And as we come into an election year, no doubt the Democratic candidate will point this out repeatedly.
However, today Bush vetoed as fiscally irresponsible a farm bill loaded with almost $40 billion (yes, billion) in subsidies to farmers, and another $30 billion (yes, billion) to pay farmers not to grow crops on their land, and it is almost certain that Congress – with support from both parties - will override his veto. Why? Because it’s an election year, and Congress has long since figured out how to buy votes with billions (yes, billions) of dollars in taxpayer’s money.
We do tend to blame the person in the White House for whatever isn’t going right, but in fact the President has a good deal less power than most people think, and Congress has a good deal more. So as we come into this election year, perhaps we ought to pay more attention to the Congressional misdeeds -- on both sides of the aisle -- rather than just attending to the high-profile Presidential race.
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