For those who keep up on president-congressional relations, you often hear the press talk about the latest "veto threat" issued against a particular bill working its way through the Congress. For those who wonder where these veto threats are found--does the president actually call up "the Congress" and threaten a veto?--they are actually contained in a document known as a "Statement of Administration Policy," or a SAP.
Unless you looked carefully, it was difficult to find where these SAPs were located. You would have to know to go to the Office of Management and Budget's webpage, scroll down the page, and look on the left hand side almost 3/4 the way down under "Legislative Information," and there you would find "Statements of Administration Policy" (the link takes you to the OMB webpage as it existed in 2006).
I went to the OMB webpage today, and lo and behold, right there at the top, on the right side of the webpage is a link: "Most Recent SAPs." It all seems right. During Republican control of the Congress, the administration would issue these veto threats, yet to keep the illusion of a Republican president cooperating with a Republican Congress, it made it difficult for the lay person to find. Now that the Democrats have taken over, you have the president emphasizing his veto power more prominently by moving the SAP link to the top of the OMB webpage for anyone to find. You certainly would be hard to defend that this was simple "web redesign."
