and win the respect of the general public, besides.

As we all know, Congress has been on a pork spree, such as the infamous Alaska "bridge to nowhere." This is where the Bush Administration comes in. To spend money on blatantly wasteful projects like the bridge to nowhere is not only bad policy, it's contrary to the executive branch's duty to spend money only for the "general welfare." The President should undertake a constitutional review (which should be deferential to Congress, but not supine) of all recent highway bill appropriations, and refuse to spend money when it would not advance the general welfare. To put himself above partisanship, particular focus should be on spending in Republican congressional districts.

Note that refusing to spend money for constitutional reasons is different than the old executive claim of a general "impoundment" power, rejected by Congress during the Nixon years. Don't have the time to go into a full defense here, but I doubt the courts would intervene in an assertion of the Executive's constitutional authority.

There is the question of hypocrisy, given that the president signed the highway bill. But (1) in the absence of the legislative line-item veto, signing $270 billion legislation that includes some non-general welfare items is inevitable; and (2) if Bush could declare campaign finance laws unconstitutional and then sign one, he could certainly sign a bill and then declare parts of it unconstitutional.

UPDATE: Contrary to some comments, exercise of "executive review" would be unlikely to significantly reshape the balance of power between Congress and the President, nor would it be, more generally, "the end of the world as we know it." From Washington to Nixon, presidents had and exercise the implicit power to refuse to spend money Congress appropriated, though they didn't assert a constitutional justification for doing so, they just refused. The power was exercised moderately and responsibly.