GOP House Defies Bush - Over Pork Spending

In using the popular transportation bill to advertise his tough position on spending, the president appears to have badly miscalculated the mood of members of his own party. Sweetening the House measure are about 3,000 parochial projects for home districts -- double the number approved in the previous long-term bill, passed in 1997.

They include a $15 million earmark to build a road to a gold mine in Alaska; $3 million for a river walkway in Montgomery, Ala.; and $250,000 to construct a transportation museum at a Cleveland high school.

At the same time, GOP lawmakers from Florida, Ohio, Michigan and other states seen as battlegrounds in the presidential election are demanding major changes in a highway aid formula that, they say, shortchanges their states. In tense sessions with House GOP leaders this week, some Republicans from those states indicated that they might vote against the bill unless the disparities are corrected.

Rather than forcing House Republicans into line, as in the past, the White House's veto threats provoked an unprecedented revolt by congressional Republicans.

el - I suspect some element of payback for Bush lying about Medicare Drug Bill costs.