My last two posts have dealt with one of the most unique attributes of American government, the line-item veto. In one post I came out against any president having the line-item power. In the second post, I began to have a change of heart and offered support for President Bush’s recent proposal. Though, with this proposal (Legislative Line-Item Veto Act of 2006) some very important matters can be a bit deceiving.

Firstly, the president’s proposal is probably anything but a line-item veto, or at least by definition it’s not. The current proposal by Bush may be more correct if it were called the Legislative Line-Item Rescission Act of 2006. But calling for correct labels in Washington or politics in general can be an exhausting task. The very reason why it’s a rescission and not a veto may be the reason why I do not oppose its passage.

Again, I will use the Washington Post’s editorial on the matter because so far it’s the best summary of the Act that I have found yet. With Bush’s proposal the president “could not nix part of a spending bill; he could, however, temporarily freeze a spending item and request that Congress rescind it.” And that’s the key to all of this.

With a true line-item veto, the president could completely wipeout any item of a bill that he/she does not agree with and doesn’t want to become law. With Bush’s recent proposal, the president can only highlight certain items, send them back to Congress for further review, and then once there Congress can either decide to stand by those items and demand they be kept in the legislation or agree with the president and take them out. The main ingredient of this Act is that it forces Congress to take some form of public action (an up or down vote) on a rescinded item.

With Bush’s proposal, there is no Congressional override of a veto. All the Congress has to do is vote, and I’m assuming with a simple majority, to keep the item as part of the legislation. That might not sound like much of an executive power, but if that item is a pork barrel project the Republicans so love, then the chance of other members standing behind the item could not only be humiliating but also slim.

I also think this Act favors the Democrats more than the Republicans. For instance, the Dems have a much better chance of winning back the White House in ’08 than they do of taking back the house or senate in ’06 or ‘08. If that’s the case, come ’09 whoever the Democratic president may be will have a rescinding order to highlight Republican pork projects and demand that the Republicans answer for their irresponsiveness, thus forcing some action publicly.

If, however, the Dems fail to reclaim either the White House or Congress come ’08, then what is there to lose with the passage of this Act? The Act is only practical if it’s used. Given that President Bush has yet to use his complete veto power even once, it’s hard to imagine that he would, with this Act, want to send back Republican pork barrel projects just so he could embarrass them. So the Act becomes a discretionary power for the executive and that’s different than all the implied powers President Bush already assumes how?

We also shouldn’t kid ourselves with how Bush’s Act might control spending and help curb the deficit. It will do very little of both. The president already has the power to request fiscal rescissions on projects that he/she might think have gotten out of hand, and as far as I know President Bush has never done that either. Plus the president has complete veto power over any bill, fiscal or not, that comes to his/her desk. Also, pork projects account for very little of our national debt. If the president were to wipe out all Republican pork spending the national debt, on a good day, would still be around $420 billion.

A serious downside to this Act is, as we all know, anything that can be used for good can also be used for bad. Here is an example. A president could use this new line-item veto as a way to include his/her own pork barrel projects into the budget. Let’s say that a president really wants to up spending on food stamps and social programs but Congress slashes them in the budget. Figuratively speaking a president could easily play politics and rescind a few pork projects in certain member’s districts to push them into supporting his/her trillion dollar increase for food stamps (you get your pork project, I get mine). That action would only increase irresponsible spending. It works both ways.

Bush’s Act, I think, can be a useful tool for generally keeping Congress in line, but also has some drawbacks that Congress should seriously consider limiting. And limiting the scope of how this Act may be used could possibly require the Act to become an actual line-item veto, which would have to contain language the Supreme Court finds Constitutional and not in-line with the 1996 version.

Tags:
Bush, Democrats, Veto