Bush vetoed bill for education, health care and job training; signed $459 billion Pentagon bill [View All]

Bush vetoes domestic spending bill on health, education and jobs
By Brian Knowlton Published: November 13, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/13/america/cong.php

WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush vetoed a major spending measure on Tuesday that would have funded education, health care and job training programs, saying it contained too many special projects, even as he signed a $459 billion bill to increase the Pentagon's non-war funding.

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The veto announcement also came as top Democratic lawmakers were unveiling a new study on the "hidden costs" of the Iraq and Afghan wars. They said that if one included such factors as the higher cost of oil, lost productivity and interest payments on money borrowed to finance the wars, the real costs would nearly double, to more than $1.5 trillion.

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Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, attacked both the veto and the level of war spending. "Cancer research, investments in our schools, job training, protecting workers and many other urgent priorities have all fallen victim to a president who squanders billions of dollars in Iraq but is unwilling to invest in America's future," he said.

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Pelosi said the vetoed measure was "a bipartisan and fiscally responsible bill that addresses the priorities of the American people," from cancer research to veterans' health care. "At the same time," she said, "President Bush and his congressional allies demand hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq - none of it paid for."

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"The Congress now sitting in Washington holds this philosophy," he(Bush) said, according to an advance text of the speech. "Their majority was elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility, but so far it is acting like a teenager with a new credit card."