Line item veto

[TexasTiger 14,606]

thoughts?

[otterinbham 0]

It sounds like a great idea. But, I'm afraid that, in practice it quickly becomes a double-edged sword. Proponents say that it would lead to fiscal liability, but I think it quickly devolves into the presidency operating by total fiat, simply striking out whatever portions of a bill that he/she disagrees with. And for every scenario you can imagine with a Republican president using that on a Democratic Congress, imagine a Democratic president using the same veto power with a Republican congress.

What's more, I don't even think it would lead to fiscal responsibility. After all, Bush had a Republican Congress at his beck and call, and never vetoed the shameful spending bills that have come down Pennsylvania Avenue since 2001.

[TitanTiger 21,665]

I think it's a good idea as long as it's granted in narrow circumstances, such as being able to strike down spending that is tacked onto a bill that otherwise has nothing to do with it. And of course, there should be the ability by Congress to override the line item veto items one by one (not cobbled together).

[Tigermike 3,903]

I think it's a good idea as long as it's granted in narrow circumstances, such as being able to strike down spending that is tacked onto a bill that otherwise has nothing to do with it. And of course, there should be the ability by Congress to override the line item veto items one by one (not cobbled together).

I think that is too logical for congress to consider.

[TitanTiger 21,665]

Well, I believe the problem is that it essentially has to be a constitutional amendment. Didn't the SCOTUS strike it down as an unconstitutional overstepping of the limits of the executive branch?

[CCTAU 3,677]

Already works in 43 states? Including Georgia.

http://isakson.senate.gov/press/2005/111605lineitem.htm

[otterinbham 0]

Already works in 43 states? Including Georgia.

http://isakson.senate.gov/press/2005/111605lineitem.htm

In the short-term yes. As I said in my previous post, it sounds like a great idea. But over the long term, I really worry about putting too much power into the hands of the executive branch. A line item veto does exactly that, and once you let the genie out of the bottle, you can't really complain that much about the consequences.

Case in point: A future Republican congress (Which we aren't likely to see until 2012, due chiefly to the current Republican leadership's incompetence--but that's another post) passes a military spending increase bill due to increased geopolitical pressure in the Far East. President Hillary Clinton performs a line item veto on several critical items, thereby cutting the heart out of the legislation. Yet she can still say that she signed the bill into law. So then you have an impotent Republican Congress unable to do anything while a Democratic president excises whatever the heck she doesn't like. Heck, you guys are all imaginative. Conjure up a scenario or two on your own.

Personally, I think the last thing we need to do is hand more power to the Executive branch. It has more power now than is constitutionally tenable. What's more, if you really are a conservative, as in Barry Goldwater or William F. Buckley, then you should be suspicious of anything that doesn't curtail the power of government. Instead, a line-item veto will vastly increase it.

Finally, I find it ironic that a Republican congressman (outside of Ron Paul) would now start yapping about curtailing government spending, especially when the Republicans had control of the House, the Senate, and the White House since 2001 and did absolutely NOTHING to stop spending. In fact, they accelerated the pace of government growth. So any Republican who gets Line-Item religion now that the Democrats have gained control of Congress smacks of complete hypocricy to me.

[otterinbham 0]

In fact, here are some thoughts from that screaming liberal, George Will:

The Vexing Qualities of a Veto

By George F. Will

Thursday, March 16, 2006; Page A23

In spite of President Bush's almost unprecedented reluctance to use the veto power conferred by the Constitution -- on March 23, Bush will have served longer without issuing a veto than any president since Thomas Jefferson, who vetoed nothing in two full terms -- he says the nation needs, and implies that he would robustly use, a line-item veto power that Congress can and should give him. But both the "can" and the "should" are problematic.

The word "veto" is not in the Constitution. It says "every bill" passed by both houses of Congress must be "presented" to the president, who must sign "it" or return "it" to Congress. The antecedent of the pronoun is the entire bill, not bits of it. As President George Washington understood: "I must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto."

That did not matter then: The only appropriations bill passed by the First Congress in 1789 was just 142 words. Besides, early presidents, according to historian Forrest McDonald, considered appropriations "permissive, not mandatory," and effectively exercised a line-item veto, as when Jefferson refused to spend $50,000 for gunboats he deemed unnecessary.

Forty-three governors have, and many presidents have coveted, the power to veto line items. And the presidential veto power has been partially vitiated by big government -- by Congress's presenting presidents with 11 elephantine appropriations bills that make vetoes messy.

In 1996 a Republican-controlled Congress gave President Bill Clinton the power to cancel items that Congress could repass in a stand-alone measure. If the president then rejected that, Congress had to muster two-thirds majorities in each house to override him. But in 1998 the Supreme Court frowned. It said canceling is indistinguishable from repealing, which is legislating -- writing, not executing laws.

Indeed, the 1996 act made the president the potentially dominant legislator, able to treat a bill as a cafeteria from which he could take whatever he liked. The Constitution does not empower Congress to yield its powers. And a perhaps insoluble and hence disqualifying problem with the line-item veto is this: Legislation, as truncated by a president using a line-item veto, might never have attracted a congressional majority.

Not only is the constitutionality of the line-item veto questionable, so, too, is the veto's utility as a restraint on spending. Arming presidents with a line-item veto might increase federal spending, for two reasons.

First, Josh Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, may be exactly wrong when he says the veto would be a "deterrent" because legislators would be reluctant to sponsor spending that was then singled out for a veto. It is at least as likely that, knowing the president can veto line items, legislators might feel even freer to pack them into legislation, thereby earning constituents' gratitude for at least trying to deliver.

Second, presidents would buy legislators' support on other large matters in exchange for not vetoing the legislators' favorite small items. During the two-year life of the line-item veto, Vice President Al Gore promised that Clinton would use the bargaining leverage it gave him to get legislators to increase welfare spending.

The line-item veto's primary effect might be political, and inimical to a core conservative value. It would aggravate an imbalance in our constitutional system that has been growing for seven decades: the expansion of executive power at the expense of the legislature. This ongoing development has been driven by wars hot and cold, and by today's, which is without a foreseeable end.

Time, and perhaps the Supreme Court, will tell whether the president's proposed line-item veto -- Congress would have 10 days to ratify or oppose his proposed cancellations -- passes constitutional muster. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) thinks the president can unilaterally erase much "earmark" spending -- $52.1 billion in fiscal 2005 -- by directing executive branch officials to ignore spending that is ordered by congressional committee reports but is not included in the text of the actual appropriation bills.

In any case, about 62 cents of every dollar the federal government spends goes automatically to entitlements (54 cents) and debt service (8 cents). An additional 21 cents is for defense and homeland security. The line-item veto concerns the remaining 17 cents. That is not trivial: Savings always come at the margin. As California's governor, Ronald Reagan used his line-item veto to cut an average of 2 percent from spending bills. The governor of Texas from 1995 through 2000 used his line-item veto on bills totaling $265.1 billion -- cutting just .043 percent from those bills that he said reflected his state's conservatism.

[channonc 466]

A line item veto would give the Executive Branch far too much power. I think it would disrupt the checks and balances of our current system.

[quietfan 233]

I think otterinb'ham sums up my feelings on the line item veto nicely.

On a somewhat related issue, what's up with this whole "signing statement" BS in which the president signs a bill with his own footnote attached saying basically "Regardless of what this bill says, I will interpret it and enforce it according to my personal whim"? I see nothing in the Constitution that even suggests the Executive has this right. Has any such "signing statement" ever been implemented to the point of provoking a court review of the practice?

[otterinbham 0]

I think otterinb'ham sums up my feelings on the line item veto nicely.

On a somewhat related issue, what's up with this whole "signing statement" BS in which the president signs a bill with his own footnote attached saying basically "Regardless of what this bill says, I will interpret it and enforce it according to my personal whim"? I see nothing in the Constitution that even suggests the Executive has this right. Has any such "signing statement" ever been implemented to the point of provoking a court review of the practice?

Boy, you said a mouthful there.

Anybody who takes a partisan slant on this, and endorses it because Bush does it is sending this country down the river.