House poised to pass highway bill
White House vows veto of measure
From Ted Barrett
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A huge transportation construction bill -- deemed a critical election-year jobs measure by both Republicans and Democrats -- is expected to pass with a veto-proof margin in the House Friday, congressional aides on both sides of the aisle predicted.
President Bush has threatened to veto any bill larger than $256 billion. The House bill has an estimated price tag of $275 billion. A companion Senate bill, which passed in February by a vote of 76-21, is also veto proof. But its price tag is even higher: $318 billion.
This could put Bush in the politically awkward position of either carrying out his veto threat-- and possibly having it overridden by a GOP-controlled Congress -- or backing down and letting a bill he considers too expensive become law.
GOP congressional leaders could avoid a showdown with the president by lowering the cost when House and Senate negotiators meet to work out differences between the bills.
In the House, 290 votes are needed to override a veto. Aides said nearly all the Democrats and most Republicans would vote yes on Friday, which would easily give the measure the necessary votes.
Some lawmakers are expected to oppose the measure because they don't like the formula used to divide the money among the states. They complain it's unfair their states pay more in federal gas taxes than they get back from Washington for highway and transit construction projects.
Others don't like the 3,000 specific provisions in the bill which direct federal dollars to individual projects like horse trails in Virginia and a parking lot in Montana. Those provisions are known as earmarks.
Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, called the earmarks "pork" which "represents everything people detest about Washington."
Keith Ashdown of the group Taxpayers for Common Sense also criticized the bill. "The problem is that lawmakers have been blinded by their greed to bring home the bacon in a election year and have forgotten that our nation has a fiscal crisis," he said.
But the appeal of those hometown projects -- giving lawmakers something to brag about in their respective districts -- is likely to assure the bill a wide victory in the House.
Democrats generally want even more money, arguing with 1 million construction workers unemployed, Republicans are missing an opportunity to increase the job rolls.
"The Republicans on the Hill are clueless in the Capitol when it comes to job creation," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, declared. "The Republicans are now dithering over a feeble bill which will not meet the needs of the American people and ignores the opportunity for job creation."
Republican leaders disagreed, saying the bill will create jobs but at a reasonable price.
