However the project director, Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., was reluctant to spend project funds on activities beyond those required to win the war.
Spending projects do need to be shifted from London to the north.
(Earmarks, for the uninitiated, are spending projects that are directly requested by individual members of Congress and are not subject to competitive bidding).
"There are potential options available," Mr. Kevelighan said, adding that it was too soon to say what, if any, spending projects could be eliminated or changed.
"Your original request for $54 billion was declared dead on arrival by Republicans and Democrats alike because it was an overbroad collection of spending projects," he wrote.
Like many presidents before him, such as Ulysses S. Grant, Mr. Bush wants the power to veto specific spending projects without having to veto an entire appropriations bill.
Spending projects include the electrification of lines, route improvement work and the closure of hundreds of dangerous level crossings.
And, increasingly, those bills are larded with earmarks, individual lawmakers' spending projects added outside the regular legislative process.
Should the President veto emergency aid for disasters such as Katrina because Capitol Hill lards the legislation with spending projects unrelated to the dis-aster?
A series of big-ticket government spending projects in Thailand are part of populist policies started by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra more than a decade ago.
