Washington, D.C. – The following is a written statement by Keith Ashdown, Vice-President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, on George W. Bush signing the $286.4 billion highway bill:

By ignoring his promise to veto a fiscally irresponsible highway bill, the President has continued his record of not vetoing any legislation, no matter how wasteful or full of pork. The highway bill is billions more than we can afford and leads the nation down a fiscal road to ruin. This bill is by far the most expensive, wasteful highway bill in the nation's history. It is filled to the brim with 6,371 projects at a cost of $24 billion dollars for almost every congressional district in the country.

I'm startled by this no-veto streak. When he was governor of Texas, the President vetoed 97 bills. The bottom line is that with Republicans in control of the White House, House and Senate, there is no feasible excuse for passing such a wasteful piece of legislation.

There is no question that America needs a highway bill, but the current legislation will do very little to reduce congestion or traffic fatalities. The bill leaves the nation stuck in traffic gridlock, but greases the wheels of powerful politicians. As a result, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Don Young (R-AK) helped secure nearly $1 billion in earmarks for his sparsely populated state and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) secured $700 million for the area in and around his home district of Bakersfield, California.

Bill signings are always about symbolism and the highway bill is no different. It is only fitting, then, that the President signed this legislation in Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) district, because the Speaker secured the third highest amount of highway pork in the nation.