Homeless Veterans Bill Faces Veto Threat

clipped from www.mlive.com The House approved a homeless veterans housing bill overwhelmingly Wednesday, even though White House advisers warned they'd urge President Bush to veto it. Bush's advisers said in a statement they oppose a wage provision in the bill that requires builders of veterans housing to pay employees prevailing wage. The advisers said that provision is the bill's major problem. Bush has long opposed any changes to the law that would either increase or decrease the number of employers subject to the prevailing wage requirements in the Davis-Bacon Act, the advisers said. "For this reason, if the bill were presented to the president in its current form, his senior advisers would recommend he veto the bill," the White House said, adding that the bill also duplicates existing programs.

Davis-Bacon is a 1931 law that governs pay for public works projects. It requires that employers pay the local prevailing wage -- i.e., what everyone else in the area pays for workers. As hardships for employers go, this isn't one.

Bush, in a move so cartoonishly evil that you expect a couple of kids from a Disney movie to show him up in the end, opposes housing for homeless vets for purely ideological reasons. FDR must never, ever be encouraged or he'll just pass more of these laws, I guess -- seriously, trying to figure out what goes on in these guys' heads is a losing proposition. None of it ever makes any damned sense at all.