Posted on 07/22/2006 8:02:33 PM PDT by xzins
Bush Fighting Long Odds on Line-Item Veto By ANDREW TAYLOR ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush may be pushing hard for Congress to give him line-item veto power to remove wasteful spending from the bills it passes, but the idea seems to be sinking on Capitol Hill.
Even though lawmakers are increasingly sheepish about the "pork barrel" projects the line-item veto is designed to fight, Democrats and some old-school Republicans in the Senate are so resistant to the idea that legislation to grant Bush this authority may not even get a Senate vote.
The House passed the measure a month ago, but it has run into opposition from Senate GOP veterans such as Pete Domenici of New Mexico, an "old bull" who sits on the Appropriations Committee, even though they supported a much stronger version that passed during the Clinton administration.
The latest incarnation doesn't grant true line-item veto authority like the one the GOP-dominated Congress gave President Clinton in 1996. That version - ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court - allowed Clinton to strike items from appropriations and tax bills unless Congress mustered a two-thirds vote to override him.
What Bush is seeking would give him an opportunity to try to kill wasteful spending by singling out items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law and requiring Congress to vote on those items again. Both the House and Senate would have to vote to kill the items or else they would live on.
Opponents of the line-item veto idea say it erodes Congress' cherished control over the federal pursestrings, and gives the president power to threaten vetoes as a means of punishing political enemies and bullying them into supporting his position on other, unrelated issues.
That wasn't the way it worked, however, when Clinton used the line-item veto in 1997.
After stirring up a hornet's nest with vetoes of military construction projects, Clinton applied a light touch with other bills and never issued threats to win concessions on other issues.
"Their heart wasn't in it," said GOP lobbyist Jim Dyer, who was the staff director for the House Appropriations Committee at the time. "And they ended up hitting as many of their people as they hit of our people."
Some Republicans see it differently and have used the 1997 experience as an excuse to change their minds.
"The people who talked to me about it, who voted for the '96 act and who are now reticent, say that the way that President Clinton used it was political," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H. "I thought it was fairly legitimate."
Gregg estimated that eight or nine Republicans oppose the Bush line-item veto plan.
White House budget chief Rob Portman has been reaching out to senators in both parties to try to whittle down the opposition to the line-item veto, but he's yet to make sufficient progress to push the vote tally near the 60 votes required to defeat a filibuster.
"I've told them I'm willing to look at it," said Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, who's unwilling to commit further.
But Domenici said, "I don't think so."
Beyond firmly opposed Republicans, there seems to be a sizable group that would vote for the line-item veto if pressed, but would really rather not. With sentiment like that widespread, it's difficult for the White House to build momentum.
As for Democrats, only a few appear to be backing the new version of the line-item veto even though they supported a virtually identical concept when voted on as a watered-down alternative to the GOP proposal in 1995.
Back then, Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., co-sponsored the weaker version and nearly won a Senate vote. Earlier this year, he testified against it as an "iniquitous" - or wicked - proposal.
Still, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry of Massachusetts backs the idea, as do Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., Evan Bayh, D-Ind., Tom Carper, D-Del., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb.
The idea behind the line-item veto is that wasteful "pork barrel" spending would be vulnerable since Congress might vote to reject such items once they are no longer protected by their inclusion in bigger bills that the president has little choice but to sign.
"Today, when a lawmaker loads up a good bill with wasteful spending, I don't have any choices," Bush said earlier this month. "I either sign the bill with the bad spending or veto the whole bill that's got good spending in it."
Still, GOP leaders aren't making any promises. Maybe there will be a vote in September, but then again, maybe not.
"The line-item veto, I'd like to bring it up at some point, but nobody's made any commitment to do it," Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Wednesday
This is such a waste of calories. W could accomplish the same goal that a line item veto would by vetoing the whole budget over and over until the congress gave him something palatable. His unwillingness to veto anything until last week is very disappointing.
I don't see any way which any form of the line item veto could be constitutional. The Constitution gives the President the authority to sign the bill or veto it - no half and half. However, the President could be given back the power to sequester items in the budget. For example, Congress could vote for the bridge to nowhere and the President could sign the bill, but just refuse to authorize the Transporation Department to actually spend the money to build it.
Maybe if congress stopped trying to do the presidents job, and stopped having the courts do congress's job, and maybe just started doing their own job, and write a bill that doesn't have a bunch of pork BS in it, then maybe this whole issue wouldn't have come up and be wasting our time in the first place. Just a thought. </rant>
red herring
This could take weeks, if not months, to get the crucial part of a bill through = like funding for troops, for ex.
That would be great fodder for the dimRats - "Bush against troops...etc"
WE need to let our reps know we're watching and expect the line item veto if they want to stay in office. Now is the time with the vote coming up//
CAUTION: "making sense alert" ;o)
and I don't think it would "make a heck of a lot of [more] work..." because if they had to put each request for funds up front, in daylight, they wouldn't bother with the most of them.
PRESIDENT KERRY
red herring
I prefer orange roughe', but thanks for offering
This could take weeks, if not months, to get the crucial part of a bill through = like funding for troops, for ex.
Oh, I see, and that would cut into their time for policing MLB, renaming post offices, fondling interns, and hanging with Jack Abramoff. Totally unacceptable. It wouldn't take long the second time. It wouldn't take long if W had the stones to shut the gubament down and interrupt these guys' recesses and campaigning, huh?
That would be great fodder for the dimRats - "Bush against troops...etc"
Think about it in terms of having Tony Snow as spokesman. He would frame the debate properly - Dems willing to sacrifice troops for pork!
WE need to let our reps know we're watching and expect the line item veto if they want to stay in office. Now is the time with the vote coming up//
I will never support the line item veto. Country is just fine without it. I'm much more in favor of tossing out the RINOS and term limits.
Precisely. The way for W to drive this debate is to have built up a history of cantancerous fights over actually conservative budgets. His unwillingness to stand up to Congress the way the Constitution says to coupled with his idea of "fiscal conservatism" is to slow the growth of Bill Clinton's government does not lend me to support increasing his power over the purse strings.
Then you could just turn it around on the Democrats and ask them why they didn't override the veto. Besides, the president's party could introduce a bill for troop funding that is separate from general appropriation bills. Anyone obstructing that bill could be blamed for not supporting the troops.
The real question is why are the Republicans putting the troop funding provisions in appropriations bills that should be vetoed. If the President did veto a spending bill, I am not worried about troop funding, I think that Congress would remedy the problem quickly or risk being skewered by the public. The point of the matter is that the President should be vetoing appropriations bills but doesn't.
"Even though lawmakers are increasingly sheepish about the "pork barrel" projects"
Really? I haven't noticed this.
The President needs to take a stand and call out the Congresscritters who insert wasteful earmarks in legislation.
The line-item veto is nothing but a cop-out.
W could accomplish the same goal that a line item veto would by vetoing the whole budget over and over until the congress gave him something palatable.
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