In a shot across the bow to newly empowered Democrats, President Bush warned Wednesday he would block any attempt to raise taxes or enact overtly partisan legislation.
“If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate,” Bush cautioned in an op-ed column published by The Wall Street Journal. “If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation.”
Noting that he still has “one quarter of my presidency” left, Bush made clear that today’s Democratic takeover of Congress will not render him politically powerless.
“The majority party in Congress gets to pass the bills it wants,” he said. “The minority party, especially where the margins are close, has a strong say in the form bills take. And the Constitution leaves it to the president to use his judgment whether they should be signed into law.”
That appeared to be a veiled threat to veto any Democratic attempt to raise taxes. During his six years in office, Bush has used his veto pen just once.
“The elections have not reversed the laws of economics,” he said. “Now is not the time to raise taxes on the American people.”
The president said his tax cuts have spurred economic activity that allowed him to slash “the deficit in half three years ahead of schedule.”
During an appearance in the Rose Garden after a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Bush added, “Next month I will submit a five-year budget proposal that will balance the federal budget by 2012.”
Democrats appeared unimpressed.
“It’s encouraging that President Bush has finally expressed a willingness to work with Democrats to make balancing the budget and erasing the deficit that he created a real priority,” said Democratic National Committee Press Secretary Stacie Paxton.
Bush said balancing the budget will leave the U.S. “better positioned to tackle” overhauls of major entitlement programs.
“We need to reform Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid so future generations of Americans can benefit from these vital programs without bankrupting our country,” he said in the Rose Garden.
The president also called on Congress to give him a line-item veto so he can slash pork-barrel spending from federal budgets. And he demanded that lawmakers cut in half the number of earmarks they pass for funding of questionable projects.
