My goodness, George Will and I agree on something...

[acroyear]

The Vexing Qualities of a Veto:

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.

Comments

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Something I don't understand about the line-item veto is this: what is a line? Would it give the president the ability to simply take a black Sharpie and cross out any parts he chooses? Or are the lines clearly delineated by the writers of the bill?

If the lines are defined by the writers, is there anything to keep a single "line" from addressing different issues? For example, could a single line include pay raises for Congress and added funding for Kansas, or would these have to be separated? If they can be forced on the president as a single line, then there would ultimately be little effect -- Congress would learn to add items to a line rather than to a bill.

And, if a "line" is vetoed, how would Congress be able to respond? Would they be able to (with 2/3 vote) undo the veto of a single line, or would they have undo all/none of a veto? Suppose a "must-pass" bill included a line that most of Congress didn't like, but they passed it anyway because of other lines. If the Pres vetoes everything but the unliked line, can Congress revoke this partial signature, as they would a veto?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

yes, each line item in a bill is numbered, effectively "... amount over ... years for ... to be managed by ...". there is a standard for appropriations and budget bills because they still are effectively laws and fit into the legal code. now, granted, its done that way because there's no line-item veto so it makes the bill easier to process. with a line-item veto, it would be problematic, but not impossible, for congress to start combining line-items just as they combine riders into the bills as a whole.

as for congressional response, that depends on what version of the veto was eventually adopted. each line-item gets its own vote is the most common varation discussed, but through proceedure they may combine related line-items into a single vote to save time. For the states that have governatorial (i hate "gubernatorial") line-item vetos, there are variations on how their respective houses can address it and I don't have the time to look them up now.

in the end, its not going to happen without an amendment (i disagree with Will that its "questionable" - there is no question: its unconstitutional, period). and an amendment isn't going to happen 'cause i don't think the states will go for it even if congress was interested.

Bush is, yet again, trying to ride the Reagan legacy bandwagon, but he's far too late now. If he tried to push it through as the "Ronald Reagan Memorial Line-Item Veto Amendment" years ago, he *might* have gotten it through.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info, and the article link. I had forgotten about the whole Clinton line-item issue, and I hadn't considered the Constitution's take on the whole matter.

regarding gubernatorial, it sounds like we're calling governors "goobers" (which some may be), or using a southern accent, but it comes from the Latin gubernator.

[motherwell.livejournal.com]

Another nightmare scenario consists of Congress padding each budget with EVEN MORE items, in the hope that the President will either not have time to go through all of them, or feel compelled to "compromise" and only cross out a certain number of them. Give Congress an opportunity to be irresponsible, and guess what happens...

Question: there used to be some procedure called "withholding," whereby the President could withhold funding of programs already signed, and force Congress to vote up-or-down on each of them. Nixon overused it, I'm told, so they changed the procedure and renamed it. Does anyone know what it's called now?