The president’s line-item veto proposal is enjoying some quiet support from the Democratic ranks and from the print media. Over the last couple days The Washington Post and Senator John Kerry both came out in support of the proposal, while Senator Kerry introduced in the Senate his own version of a line-item veto power for the executive office.

Most will remember my previous post where I state that I’m not opposed to line-item veto powers but definitely opposed to anything that may allow this president more power period. However, after reading President Bush’s Legislative Line-Item Veto Act of 2006, I am starting to have a change of heart.

The language of the Act appears to be the most legislatively sane measure that I have seen yet from this administration.

The Washington Post makes note that the Act “raises none of the constitutional problems of the earlier law; nor does it raise the same concerns about concentrating power in presidential hands.” This is good since the Constitution makes it very clear that the executive cannot impose legislation or exempt Congress from its duty to not only legislate but oversight.

“Mr. Bush's idea does not so alter the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches. Under his 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. Congress would be obliged to act on such requests quickly, without amendment and with no possibility of filibuster. If a majority of both houses of Congress stood by the provision, the president's action would have no consequence. If, on the other hand, the spending were a single member's pet project -- a bridge in Alaska, say -- Congress as a whole might not stand by it. The bill, in other words, gives the president not a line-item veto but a device for forcing individual votes on line items buried within larger spending packages.”

I can agree to that. But I am very skeptical of just how much this line-item veto power will combat the out-of-control, derisory Republican spending.

Some setbacks the president may encounter could actually be because of the giddy endorsements coming from the liberal wings of the Democratic Party (i.e., John Kerry) and the print media which is currently considering this a second-page story. Maybe after the ports deal officially dies, then the media may consider this issue more newsworthy. The entire Act is creditable of a healthy political discussion.

Tags:
Bush, Line-Item Veto, A Good Line-Item Veto