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House GOP Plots Spending Veto Override Campaign

by Kay Guinane, Director of Nonprofit Speech Rights, OMB Watch - 05/21/07 12:21 PM ET

The day after Congress adopted a budget resolution for FY08, the Republican Study Committee sent a letter to the president pledging support for a presidential veto of fiscal 2008 appropriations bills. The letter says that the resolution “greatly exceeds” (by $23 billion out of $956 billion) Bush’s budget request for discretionary funding. OMB Director Rob Portman has said twice in two weeks that he would recommend the president veto any appropriations bills that exceed Bush’s request.

According to the RSC:

Republican Study Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said he already has at least 60 signatures on a letter that will be released if and when it gets enough signatures to show that more than one-third of the House would vote to sustain vetoes

By this count, Rep. Hensarling, with a putative 60 (he’s not from the show-me state, I guess) is already 85 votes short of the 145 that are constitutionally required to sustain a presidential veto.