George Bush, Mr. Relevant
George Bush should send nice Christmas cards to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The pair have done more for Bush's reputation that the three Republican-controlled Congresses that preceded the 110th. The Democratic leadership have made George Bush more relevant and more Republican than ever before -- and their latest surrender on the budget underscores it:
House Democratic leaders yesterday agreed to meet President Bush's bottom-line spending limit on a sprawling, half-trillion-dollar domestic spending bill, dropping their demands for as much as $22 billion in additional spending but vowing to shift funds from the president's priorities to theirs.The final legislation, still under negotiation, will be shorn of funding for the war in Iraq when it reaches the House floor, possibly on Friday. But Democratic leadership aides concede that the Senate will probably add those funds. A proposal to strip the bill of spending provisions for lawmakers' home districts was shelved after a bipartisan revolt, but Democrats say the number and size of those earmarks will be scaled back.
When defense spending is added to the total, discretionary spending for fiscal 2008 would reach a tentative total of $936.5 billion, $3.7 billion more than the president's request, said House Appropriations Committee staff members. All of the additional money would be spent on veterans affairs.
The agreement signaled that congressional Democrats are ready to give in to many of the White House's demands as they try to finish the session before they break for Christmas -- a political victory for the president, who has refused to compromise on the spending measures.
Who'd have thought it? Pelosi and Reid have transformed Bush into a spending hawk. In the first five years of his presidency, Bush could barely find his veto pen. Now, however, freed of the burden of defending a free-spending Republican Congress, Bush has discovered his inner Reagan and decided to fight for budgetary discipline -- and the Democrats realize that they can't beat him.
Even the Republicans left in Congress have awoken to the issue of fiscal discipline and have stopped whining about losing pork while they win the bigger victory. At first, the GOP seemed off-put by Bush's veto threats, and helped override one on the water-projects bill. Now, however, led by Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, they finally have heard the message of 2006 from discontented conservatives to start acting like small-government Republicans.
The new effort has succeeded in splitting the Democratic majority. More to the point, it has rescued George Bush from lame-duck status and given the Republicans some sorely needed credibility on fiscal responsibility. The budget collapse by the Democrats acknowledges that the spending discipline demanded by Bush and American taxpayers can be achieved, and it makes their earlier insistence on massive spending increases look like Democratic politics as usual. The surrender will infuriate their base, which will not be mollified by explanations of 51 vice 60 in the Senate.
The Democrats swore that they would make Congress ascendant over the White House and render Bush irrelevant. Instead, Bush has become Mr. Relevant, and it's almost entirely due to the political malpractice of Pelosi and Reid. Perhaps Bush should send them some holiday fruitcake as well.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on December 13, 2007 7:04 AM | Comments () | TrackBacks (5)
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