Bush says he'll veto to curtail outlays
He warned about the Democrats' plan to spend $23 billion above his budget.
CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush warned the Democratic-controlled Congress yesterday that he would use his veto power to stop runaway government spending.
"The American people do not want to return to the days of tax-and-spend policies," Bush said in his weekly radio address.
The House passed a $37 billion budget for the Homeland Security Department on Friday, but Republicans rallied enough votes to uphold a promised veto from Bush.
The measure - one of several annual spending bills that Congress began to consider this week - exceeds Bush's request for the department by $2.1 billion.
Democrats defended the extra money in the homeland security bill Friday, noting that it contained money to hire 3,000 additional border agents, improve explosives detection at airports, and double the amount of cargo screened on passenger aircraft.
The administration, hoping to appease Republicans who demand fiscal restraint, has pledged to keep overall spending to the level in Bush's proposed budget in February.
The president has had uneven success.
Most recently, Democrats added $17 billion to an Iraq war funding bill, money not sought by Bush. All told, Democrats plan spending increases for annual agency budgets of about $23 billion above the White House budget request.
House GOP conservatives have pledged to come up with the votes needed to uphold any Bush vetoes.
"I am not alone in my opposition," Bush said, stressing that 147 Republicans in the House had pledged to stand with him. "These 147 members are more than the one-third needed to sustain my veto of any bills that spend too much."
Bush, however, has backed away from his threat to veto the politically sensitive bill to fund veterans' programs. It exceeds his request by $4 billion, or 7 percent, but he acquiesced when GOP lawmakers made it clear that, with troops overseas, they were not interested in squaring off with Democrats over spending for veterans.
In his radio broadcast, Bush also railed against earmarks - a common Capitol Hill practice of slipping funding for pet projects into spending bills.