The Worm Turns?

They wouldn’t do it to provide health care for middle-class kids, but the Congress will defend pork barrel projects that address the scourge of brown lawns and dirty cars.

The Associated Press reports [because no one else seems to do any actual reporting anymore] that Congress overrides the Shrubbery’s veto:

WASHINGTON – President Bush suffered the first veto override of his seven-year-old presidency Thursday as the Senate enacted a $23 billion water resources bill despite his protest that it was filled with unnecessary projects.

The vote was 79-14 to pass the bill. Enactment was a foregone conclusion, but it still marked a milestone for a president who spent his first six years with a much friendlier Congress controlled by his Republican Party. Now he confronts a more hostile, Democratic-controlled legislature, and Thursday’s vote showed that even many Republicans will defy him on spending matters dear to their political careers.

The bill funds hundreds of Army Corps of Engineers projects, such as dams, sewage plants and beach restoration, that are important to local communities and their representatives. It also includes money for the hurricane-hit Gulf Coast and for Florida Everglades restoration efforts.

Of course this bill does almost nothing to address the actual problems of the continuing severe drought in the Southeast or the West, but there are a lot of program related water involved special projects that sort of deal with water in specific Congressional districts in this no committee chairman left behind mess. Unfortunately, this is the only way you can get anything passed these days.