Now, I love big, macho headlines as much as the next guy, but c'mon Huffington Post. "Obama Issues First Veto Threat"??
Seriously?
Through the Bush Administration, the President-Elect's made a request for the second half of the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program). This would be part of the $700 Billion Dollars Congress allocated to help...you know...stop the Western world from imploding.
Our outgoing Treasury Secretary Andrew Mell--eerrr, sorry. I'm thinking of Herbert Hoover's waste of space Treasury Secretary. I should be thinking of Bush's waste of space Henry Paulson (every bit as dim as the Wikipedia picture implies), who at first promised to spend the first part of the $350 Billion dollars on helping homeowners stay in their homes...
...but then he saw that a bunch of his Wall Street buddies (remember, Paulson was working at Goldman Sachs before being pinched by the Bushies) need--...err, sorry wanted money, he went back on his word to Congress, gave the money to his pals, figuring that once Wall Street had money to lend, the homeowners would be just fine.
Two months later. Wall Street has its money. We don't know who got what because Paulson ain't saying, at least not to us. Homeowners are still going broke, and nobody's lendin' nothin'...
Needless to say, Congress is feeling a wee-bit burned by the experience.
So the President-Elect wants to use the second half of this $700 Million Appropriation for (hopefully) the purpose for which it was intended. Congress wants strict oversight of the disbursment of these monies, unlike last time.
Now, the trick is the GOP is already thumping their chest, saying that they'll stop the bill.
Having lost still more seats in both Houses in the last election, good luck with that.
The odds of this bill passing are distant and remote. There's a stimulus train comin' down the tracks, and only a few want to get in its way.
I expect a small number of Democrats to defect and vote with the GOP, but probably in similiar numbers to the amount of Republicans who will vote for the second half, especially if the words "helps Homeowners" and "Oversight" are used.
So, if by some miracle Eric Cantor (not worth linking, but expect to see his name a lot in the next four years) and the other House and Senate Republicans pass this bill to stop Obama from getting the second half, Obama has threatened to...gasp, shock and horror...veto the legislation.
To me the bigger story would come in the GOP actually making it that far.
Memo to Huffington Post, Charles Foster Kane was wrong. Making the headline bigger doesn't make the news bigger...
UPDATE (3:35 Pacific): CNN now has the story, thus raising the temperature a little bit. But the fundamentals haven't changed.
