Bush Signs Spending Bill, Jabs at Dems

[Akoto]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Saturday signed a bill to prevent a government shutdown, but not without complaint. Bush lambasted the Democrats who control Congress for sending him the stopgap measure while they continue to work on more than a dozen spending bills funding the day-to-day operations of 15 Cabinet departments.

"Congress failed in its most basic responsibility," the president said in his weekly radio address.

The bills are tied up because Democrats want to add $23 billion for domestic programs to Bush's $933 billion request for the approximately one-third of the federal budget funded by the yearly spending bills. Bush has threatened vetoes on most of the bills, eager to re-establish his party's reputation as the place to go for fiscal discipline.

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Democrats say their spending add-ons are relatively modest given the overall size of the budget and in comparison with Bush's pending $189 billion request for Pentagon operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008. And most of the additional money, Democrats say, simply restores cuts proposed by Bush to popular programs such as community development grants, health research and anti-crime initiatives.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/29/national/w092518D49.DTL&type=politics

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Edited because I wanted to include part of the Democrats' response in the OP.

[JTFrog]

1. replied to wrong thread. n/t

[fasttense]

2. And Bush has failed in his most basic responsibility to the American people.

You know, that silly little oath he took when he was sworn in. The one that says something about the Constitution of the Untied States.