This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, October 5, 2007.

I'm Caleb Brown.

President Bush has found the veto pen and is expected to have used it twice by the end of the

week.

That would make for a total of five vetoes in

nearly seven years in office. But why now? Is it all partisanship? Brandon Arnold,

the Cato Institute's Director of Government Affairs weighs in.

Describe President Bush's history of vetoes.

Well, there's not much of a history to be frank. So far he is vetoed

now four bills. The first three bills there were two stem cell bills and a

war funding bill. What's interesting about those three bills was there wasn't really a financial objection or

fiscal objection.

The stem cell bills obviously related to abortion.

It's clear that that was a moral issue to him and that's why he

vetoed those two bills. And then the war funding bill, he felt like infringed upon his constitutional

authority as commander-in-chief. He thought it had too many strings attached to how

he could deploy the troops. So that's why he vetoed those three bills. His fourth

veto, the one that just happened this week, was over a S-CHIP bill which is a children's health care

plan and the reason he vetoed this bill is actually because he thought it spent

too much money and because he thought it moved in the direction of

socialism for health care.

So for fiscal conservatives and for libertarians,

...