Argus Leader excerpt:
President Bush on Tuesday vetoed a spending measure for health and education programs prized by congressional Democrats.
The measure Bush vetoed included a $1 million earmark for the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service and Representative Democracy at South Dakota State University.
That earmark was among about 2,200 in the bill. The total bill included about $151 billion in discretionary spending – more than $1 billion of that in earmarks.
Earmarks are spending items requested by individual lawmakers for special projects in their districts. The money is often funneled to museums, universities and other local programs, and they’ve been identified by budget watchdogs as a source of Washington’s spendthrift ways.
The Daschle earmark was one of several in the bill that were added in a conference committee, where lawmakers sorted out differences between the bills passed by the U.S. House and Senate. Because it was added in a conference committee, the earmark was never voted on in the normal appropriations process in either the House or Senate.
Democrats who took control of Congress last year vowed to reform the earmark process, including eliminating earmarks added in conference committees.
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