An OMBW Dialogue CRAIG: President Bush makes no sense, he's vetoing the Homeland Security spending bill, but not Military Construction (MilCon), the Ag bill, but not Financial Services for budget reasons. What's up with that? DANA: It looks random, but... wait, haven't his veto statements all said that he wants Congress to pass spending bills totaling not a penny over his $933 discretionary spending topline for FY 2008? CRAIG: Sure, but then why is he vetoing some bills where Congress' 302(b) allocations for FY 2008 exceed his February budget request -- but not others? DANA: It's like the adage about dogs -- because he can. What is the "underage" -- the total difference between Bush and Congress on the spending bills where Bush has actually asked for more money than Congress has? CRAIG: Let's see, that's State-Foreign Operations ($700 million more), Energy-Water ($600 million), Legislative Branch ($300 million), and Defense ($3.5 billion), for a total of... $5.1 billion. DANA: OK, and which are the bills that where Congress has asked for more money than Bush, but Bush has not issued veto threats against? And what's the total "overage?" CRAIG: That would be MilCon (a $4 billion difference) and Financial Services ($1.3 billion), for an identical $5.1 billion total. DANA: I think that explains everything. It looks like he doesn't have to veto MilCon to keep to his $933 discretionary spending topline for FY 2008. CRAIG: Gotcha -- that explains why he's got to veto the Ag bill. Congress is asking $1 billion more for Ag than he is. But Bush has spent down all of his $5.1 billion wiggle room -- he's got nothing left. He has no choice. DANA: As random as his veto threat selection seems -- here but not there, this but not that -- maybe there is method in his veto madness after all.