George W. Cleveland

President Bush is behind President Cleveland 42-1 in the veto derby, but we should all cheer him on.

The Wall Street Journal reports: Bush Plans to Veto Drug Legislation

WASHINGTON -- President Bush will veto legislation requiring the government to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices under Medicare, Republican officials said Thursday.

The House is scheduled to debate and vote Friday on the bill, which is one of a handful of priority items for Democrats who gained control of Congress in last fall's elections. Republicans said the White House was preparing a formal veto threat against the measure.

The administration has been working with key Republicans in Congress on a response to the legislation. One official said a recent draft of the formal statement was unequivocal in promising a veto.

Mr. Bush has already threatened to veto another of the top six bills Democrats are pushing across the House floor in the first two weeks of the new Congress. That's the measure, approved Thursday, to expand the extent to which federal funds could be used for embryonic stem cell research.

Divided government is a beautiful thing, President Madison (two vetoes), thanks.

These two bills together define the character and represent the worst of the Democrats' "Six in '06" bill. I'll let slip that this is '07, the Democrat initiatives have a common thread that the government will pick winners instead of the free market. Taken as a group, their common thread is that they are anti-Hayekian.

Embryonic stem cell research is promising. The cynic in me wonders if it will retain its popularity when it cannot be used as a cudgel against an Evangelistic President. Either way, government is saying that they will fund stem cell research. But they will then take away the private profits of the drug companies who are working on alternate therapies. Price controls as envisioned by the House Democrats will devastate investment in pharmaceuticals.

Likewise, they plan to halt subsidies to the oil companies (hooray and huzzah!) and give it to alternative energy (boo). If they did nothing, the market would import oil. The Republicans subsidize domestic production. The Democrats want to stop giving money to the people who provide us energy and give it to those who cannot.

The decisions will be made by politics. Senators Grassley and Harkin will be certain to bring some ethanol subsidies to Iowa; the guy in Arkansas developing biomass fuels from Tyson's discarded chicken carcasses will suffer from Blanche Lincoln's lack of seniority. Government will pick winners badly.

The one six-in-oh-seven initiative that is inside the Congressional purview is an abdication of Congressional authority. They will poke their noses into medicine, energy, and wages. Yet they will accept the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission en banc, with no debate or discussion.

Keep that veto pen warn, Mr. President. Stock up on ink refills.

110th Congress Posted by jk at January 12, 2007 11:48 AM