Yesterday, the United States House of Representatives overrode President Bush's veto of the Water Resources Development Act, which would authorize $7,000,000,000 for coastal restoration projects here in Louisiana ALONE. Yes, that is 7 billion dollars, folks. And our President, the one that this state voted for TWICE(!), vetoed the bill in the name of fiscal responsibility. I find it interesting he wants to ignore the HUGE credit card bill he's rung up for our children by keeping the war off the books.
But that's not the point of this piece. I received an email from Mark, the blogger behind Levees Not War, regarding a letter he sent to the President, which I post in its entirety below. Before you go read that, please do the following:
Call or email the White House and express your dissatisfaction with the President's veto:
White House e-mail : comments@whitehouse.gov
White House phone : 202-456-1111
Call or email Senators Landrieu and Vitter to thank them for their work on this bill.
Senator Landrieu: (202) 224-5824
Senator Vitter: (202) 224-4623
You can also call the Capital Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. They will connect you with whatever Senator you ask for.
Now for the letter sent by Mark ... it's a beauty.
The following letter has been faxed to the White House (202-456-2461). Please see below for a letter faxed to leaders in the House and Senate urging an override of the president’s veto. (The House has done it! 361 to 54—ninety votes more than needed to override.) Please also see our ‘Political Action’ pagefor fax and phone numbers of the White House and Senate. Help us press for a Congressional override of the president’s veto—it would be a first. We’re halfway there. Thank you.
November 6, 2007
Dear President Bush:
The nation was inspired by your speech from Jackson Square on Sept. 15, 2005, when you promised “we will do what it takes . . . we will stay as long as it takes . . . to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives” after Katrina. We wanted to believe you were serious.
Sadly, we have watched for over two years as you and recovery czar Donald Powell have assured us that money is coming. But the funds for rebuilding have been “too little, too late”—just like the U.S. response to the “federal flood” resulting from failure of the federally built levees and floodwalls. (You claim you’ve allocated $116 billion for the Gulf Coast, but at least $75 billion of that was for post-storm relief—much of it going to Halliburton and other friends of the Republican Party. Of the remaining portion, only about 40% has actually been spent. As New Orleans City Council member Shelley Midura wrote to you in August, “the only direct federal assistance this city has received from you has been two community disaster loans that you are demanding be paid back.”)
Now you have vetoed the Water Resources Development Act—the first water projects bill in seven years, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support—on an unbelievable claim of fiscal restraint. Water projects authorization bills are normally passed every two years, but none have been passed since you took office. The $23 billion that WRDA would authorize is burned through every two months in the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You have requested $196 billion for those wars in 2008 alone—on top of the $481 billion 2008 allowance for the Pentagon.
Your veto shows you are not serious about Louisiana and the Gulf Coast’s recovery, and you are not serious about the nation’s aging infrastructure. We hope that you only vetoed this bill as a signal of spending restraint for fiscal conservatives in your own party—a pretense that you knew would be overridden because of the strong support in the House and Senate.
We call on all members of Congress to vote again in favor of WRDA, and we urge the White House to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and apply the money squandered there to strengthen America’s infrastructure, port security, schools, and health care system—to rebuild this nation that has withered under your administration.
You have visited New Orleans many times since Katrina. Please don’t come back until WRDA is passed and the Army Corps of Engineers gets the funding it needs to “be all it can be.”
Thank you.
I would ask the President to NEVER come back to Louisiana. He's already proven not to care about Louisiana many, many times over the last 2 years, and I'm just sick and tired of being used as a prop to show that "compassionate conservative" side of him.
