$820 billion Bush budget bill

[detox]

Respected leaders on both sides of the aisles of Congress know that the just-passed $820 billion Bush budget bill is filled with massive amounts of pork that will add to our dangerous national deficit that will become due after Bush and many of them leave office.
Even GOP Senate leader Bill Frist had reservations about passing it. (NYT 01.23.04) Even worse for progressives, the Dems caved, while keeping a eye on election issues.

In so doing, they gave up their defense of overtime pay for workers in their rush for the exit. History suggests that when the Republicans were in the minority, their leaders were more corageous in fighting for what they thought was right.

The Dems were called "spineless" after the Supremes selected Bush and that session of Congress began, and the description still sticks. However, the policies of Bush are ultimately more dangerous to our democracy than the spinelessness of the Dems, and that should be remembered when November rolls around

[Wake up CALL]

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In so doing, they gave up their defense of overtime pay for workers in their rush for the exit.

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The overtime provisions consisted of this:

The measure would let hourly workers who log more than 40 hours in a week choose between overtime pay or compensatory time off at a later date.

Not exactly like it was depriving millions of workers of their overtime pay. In fact I am sure many mid-level managers would prefer comp time to overtime pay upon ocassion.

Otherwise I agree with you that the bill was full of pork. Republicans and Democrats alike are to blame, not just the current president. I find it unlikely that President Bush asked for $2.3 million to study the genetics of grapes in upstate New York. Sounds like either Hillary Clinton or the department that counts those raisens in Dynastys' raisen bread are most the likely culprits.