In a sharp escalation of rhetoric, President Bush accused Democrats Tuesday of wasting time on a “constant stream of investigations” and an “endless series of failed votes to pull our troops out of Iraq.”
Appearing under the North Portico of the White House with House Republicans, Bush slammed congressional Democrats for trying to merge three pieces of unrelated legislation in an effort to make funding for U.S. troops in Iraq contingent on additional domestic spending.
“I will veto such a three-bill pileup,” Bush said after meeting with House Republicans. “It’s hard to imagine a more cynical political strategy than trying to hold hostage funding for our troops in combat and our wounded warriors in order to extract $11 billion in additional social spending.”
The Democrat-controlled Congress has a job approval rating of just 23 percent, or nine points below the president’s rating of 32 percent, according to Gallup. Seeking to capitalize on this differential, Bush ripped Democrats for passing “an endless series of tax increases” instead of overdue appropriations bills.
“They haven’t seen a bill they could not solve without shoving a tax hike into it,” Bush said. “They have not been able to send a single annual appropriations bill to my desk, and that’s the worst record for a Congress in 20 years. One of the important responsibilities of the Congress is to pass appropriations bills. And yet the leadership that’s on the Hill now cannot get that job done.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the president’s rhetoric “demonstrates just how out of touch he is with reality.”
“The president complains that Congress is spending too much time on oversight and on changing course in Iraq,” the Nevada Democrat said. “But if this administration were playing it straight with the American people, we would have nothing to investigate.
“And if congressional Republicans would stand up to the president and demand a change of course in Iraq, we could spend less time working to fix this failed war policy and more time focusing on other threats we face around the world,” he added.
