Stevieslaw: The Veto Ratio
President Obama showed little love for the Keystone Pipeline Program, vetoing it as he said he would. Republican reaction was fast and furious. House Speaker John Boehner called the veto a “national embarrassment,” while Senate Majority Leader McConnell accused the President of “yielding to powerful special interests.”
Presidential Spokesperson, Watt Now, was quick to point out that this was only Obama’s 3rd veto, while Clinton had issued 37, Ronald Reagan 78 and Bush I and II together 56. The Republicans quickly responded. Spokeswoman, Tim Onmihands, noted that previous Presidents had vetoed more legislation simply because more legislation had been passed. “It is obviously the ratio of vetoes to passed bills that is the important parameter,’ she noted. “And since this congress has passed very, very little of anything, particularly if we discount naming post-offices, the ratio shows that Obama is overusing his veto power.” “This tyranny must stop.”
The Keystone Pipeline—known environmentally as, “the nail in the climate coffin,” has been under review by the State Department, since the Presidency of George W. Bush. The review will determine if the pipeline, which will take really, really dirty Canadian tar sands, refine it and ship it overseas, is in the national interest. Since 2008, the Department has spent over an hour and a half reviewing the program. State Department officials have increasingly talked about turning some of the review over to the Department of Veterans Affairs in an attempt to streamline it. A State Department spokesperson, who wished to remain anonymous, summarized the problem as, “National interest is a very difficult thing to determine. The fact that it makes no sense to build the damn thing from any other point of view is of no help to us.”