Word: vetoes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...endure: "Have you looked at the condition of the Treasury, at the amount of money it contains, at the appropriations already made by Congress, at the amount of other unavoidable claims upon it?" That President was Andrew Jackson in 1830, and he had enough political clout to make his veto of the Maysville Road Bill stick. The graveled National Road that aroused Old Hickory's ire has, of course, evolved into today's 44,000-mile Interstate Highway System. But the 19th century conflict between pork barrel and public purse endures as a staple of American democracy, often pitting...
...again last week as the House, overwhelmingly, and then the Senate, after a stop-and-go drama, overrode Ronald Reagan's veto of the $88 billion highway bill. For a President determined to put the political damage from Iranscam in the rear-view mirror, the final 67-33 defeat in the Senate was an unwelcome reminder of his weakened political condition. But after months of lassitude Reagan put the full force of the presidency into his search for that elusive final vote. In fact, as jarring as the defeat was, it could end up strengthening the President: the personal energy...
...success could be as low as 1 in 100. Instead, with the firm declaration "I want to do it," Reagan traveled the extra mile down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol to plead personally with Senate Republicans for the single vote he needed to sustain his veto...
...larger issue underlying the veto fight was serious: Should Congress have the right to mandate the construction and repair of individual roads and bridges? Almost all the money in the $88 billion, five-year authorization bill is passed on to the states according to complex allocation formulas. But legislators know that it is hard to take credit for such indirect funding in a 30-second campaign spot. So in 1982 Congress decided to build a few roads and add a few expressway exits on their own. Thus was born the demonstration project, a legislative fiction that claimed these congressional highways...
Reagan has threatened to veto any tax rate increase, and Wright said he wasn't sure the Congress could override him. "If the president is determined to obstruct deficit reduction, he can do that," he said...