The Line-Item Veto: The Congressional And Executive Line Item Committee
The Line-Item Veto:
The Congressional and Executive Line-Item Committee
U. S. Government
The founding fathers were afraid of any entity in the new government becoming too much like the monarchs they had fled from. For that reason there are limitations built into the United States Constitution that give each branch of government some control over the other branches. The United States system of government is based on a set of checks and balances that keep one branch or one person from becoming too powerful. It divides the powers of the federal government between the Congress, the President and the Federal Courts. One of the powers of the President is to exercise the veto over bills passed by Congress. This …show more content…
veto power is balanced by the fact that a greater majority of the Congress can override it. The “line-item veto” is the power of an executive to veto sections or items of a tax or appropriation measure, lines, while actually signing the rest of the measure into law.i This would be a valuable tool in eliminating unnecessary spending and bringing the budget and deficit under control. In spite of the fact that all but six states allow governors some form of the line-item veto, there are powerful debates for and against granting it to the President of the United States, and historical evidence to support each argument. The line-item veto would be a good tool in the hands of a president, as it would allow him or her to control unnecessary spending and unnecessary earmarks, or pork, but since that is an uphill battle without the support of the Supreme Court, other measures must take the place of the line-item veto. The line-item veto is not a new idea. All but six states (Indiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont) have some form of line-item veto. Even the Confederate States included this in their “Confederate States Constitution.”ii President Ronald Reagan in his State of the Union Address first proposed the idea of the line-item veto on a national level on January 25, 1984. Then in his State of the Union address in 1986 he said “Tonight I ask you to give me what forty-three governors have: Give me a line-item veto this year. Give me the authority to veto waste, and I’ll take the responsibility, I’ll make the cuts, I’ll take the heat.”iii Bill Clinton said a similar thing in his 1995 State of the Union address in 1995. President after president has asked for this power because they recognize the wisdom of it while recognizing the problem of wasteful spending. An appropriations bill is one that gives authority to “spend the money that belongs to the United States government…which spell out exactly how much money will be given to each of the large federal agencies.” iv There are thirteen appropriation bills a year which fun the whole federal government. Presidents Reagan and Clinton and others have recognized the positive aspects of being able to cut individual items from the appropriations bills. Like all presidents, Reagan faced only two frustrating options when huge appropriations bills came to his desk filled with earmarks that most of the time were pet projects for the legislators, often meant to gain favor with the electorate and get them reelected; he could sign the whole bill with the billions of dollars of special interest spending, or he could shut down government operations by vetoing the bill. There was no ground in the middle. A line-item veto, he believed, would let the President eliminate individual items from congressional appropriations, so that pork barrel, or special interest spending, would not be approved just by having hijacked an otherwise necessary spending bill. The closest the Executive branch came to actually finalizing this debate came during the presidency of Bill Clinton. President Clinton was actually given the power for a little while as a result of the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, which was passed by Congress. He used the power eighty-two times in eleven bills.v Unfortunately, a United States District Court Judge, Thomas F. Hogan ruled that, “unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution.vi Afterwards, the United States Supreme Court in Clinton v. City of New York, and a related case called Raines v. Byrd, upheld Hogan’s ruling.vii Rudolph Giuliani brought this case to the Supreme Court. On June 25, 1998 the United States Supreme Court agreed with Judge Hogan that the Line item Veto Act did violate the Presentment Clause, which requires that every bill which has passed the House and the Senate before becoming law must be presented to the President for approval or veto, but the Constitution doesn’t say anything about whether the President may “amend or repel provisions of bills that have passed the House and Senate in identical form.” viii The Court felt that the fact that the Constitution said nothing about this particular issue meant that was the same as a prohibition. Again during his administration George W. Bush asked Congress to pass legislation to again give this veto power to him. He also announced his intent to seek this in his State of the Union address in 2006. His idea might actually have worked. It really amounted to freezing a spending item and requesting that Congress rescind it. Congress would have to act quickly on a request like this. If a majority was willing to stand by an earmark it would stand, but they at least may not have been willing to stand by ridiculous pet projects like a bridge to nowhere in Alaska. At least this version would have helped to get rid of line items buried in large spending packages. Several Legislators, including John McCain, Russ Feingold, and Paul Ryan introduced a new version of the Line Item Veto Act in 2006, to allow the President to “single out wasteful spending and to put such spending on hold,” saying it would allow the President to take control of the situation. Rep. Ryan said, “While an important tool, a line-item veto cannot stop Washington’s unchecked spending spree and the glaring lack of a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.” ix Then as late as 2009 Senator Russ Feingold and Senator John McCain again introduced legislation that came close to a line-item veto. It would have given president power to take earmarks out of new bills by sending a bill back to the Legislature without an earmark, expecting that they would vote quickly by majority vote to make deadlines in the bill to get it passed. Supporters of the line item veto recognize that there is a need to control spending and to cut the deficit. They think the line-item veto would allow presidents to make the government more accountable for federal spending. Sometimes very powerful legislators attach “rider” amendments to important bills. A rider is an “informal term for a non-germane amendment to a bill or an amendment to an appropriation bill that changes the permanent law governing a program funded by the bill.”x The line-item veto could be used to prevent these. Without the power of this veto presidents feel as though they have to sign controversial riders into law even though they may not support them. The line-item veto would strengthen a president’s powers to rescind individual appropriations while allowing the rest of a good bill to pass. Congress would still have the power to override the line-item veto, leaving important checks and balances in place. Those who are afraid of an upset of the balance of power should remember that the power of the president is still limited. Over half of the federal spending is permanently authorized, so a president cannot veto these, and a president cannot veto appropriations from previous years, so only a small percentage of federal spending is involved, enough to make a difference, but not enough to throw things out of balance. The arguments in support of the line-item veto are strong and based in a real desire to make things right and just. Wasteful spending is an important issue and this is a powerful tool against it. No president should have to sign bills that go against his or her principles. Those opposed to granting the line item veto to presidents say that the line item veto would give presidents too much power over government spending in comparison to the power of the Congress. Some of them argue that it might even give the presidents legislative authority in changing law, which might violate the intent of the Constitution. The main argument against the veto, even by the Supreme Court, is the interpretation of the Presentment Clause in Article I, Section 7 of the United States Constitution:
Article I Section 7: “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the
President of the United States: If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his
Objections to that House in which it shall have originated. . . . .If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that
House, it shall become a Law.” xi
George Will took a stand against the veto proposed by President Bush, saying that “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.” Will doesn’t feel it would do anything to reduce spending anyway, and might even make the situation worse.xii Steve Chapman, a liberal writer for the Chicago Tribune, said, “a line-item veto by itself does nothing to curb fiscal indiscipline.”xiii The fact that so many states have had this power for a long time, and it has not made a big difference in the economic status of their economies is also a common argument against the effectiveness of the line-item veto. Several groups joined forces to oppose the line-item veto, including the University of Virginia Center for Politics and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Both Republican and Democratic leaders in the Congress have fought for bills proposing the line-item veto, but there are also strong opponents in both parties, and strong lobbying forces that oppose it and obviously the most influential and the final word on the subject is the Supreme Court. The constitutional argument is a difficult one to get past. This is the supreme law of our country and it should not be easy to change its intent. This may be an argument that is too impenetrable to overcome, and no matter how right the power of the line-item veto seems, the Supreme Court has done its job by interpreting and defending the Constitution. I think the solution to giving the line-item veto to the President is to give the power to a joint Congressional and Executive bipartisan committee of eight people.
The Congress could have approval over the four Executive appointees, and the President could have approval over the four Congressional appointees. It could be called the Congressional and Executive Line-Item Committee (CELIC). Every budget would have to be finally cleared through this committee and then returned to the Legislature for final approval with cuts, and then to the President’s desk for final approval with cuts. This would maintain the balance of power, provide continued checks and balances and a slimmer, less bloated budget. The members of the Committee should all have budget and economic experience to gain approval by the Congress and the President. This keeps a line-item veto on the table but out of the hands of any one division of the government. The Chairman of this committee could be The Chairman of the Federal Reserve or some other high-profile individual known for an in depth knowledge of financial matters. This would leave the power of both the President and the Congress in its present proportion and would insure that the President does not have too much power over government spending in relation to Congress. It also does not go against the Presentment Clause and might withstand challenges before the Supreme Court. Obviously the President would have some sway over those he appointed, but then again so would the Congress. In truth, the Committee would most likely function in an independent manner and in the best interest of the country, letting stand those expenditures that are fair and just, and eliminating the bridges to nowhere that have caused such outcries for reasonable expenditures. Finally, the bipartisan nature of the Committee should calm any concerns about ideological imbalance in the budgetary
process. The line-item veto, or something that accomplishes reasonable expenditures that benefit the people of the United States, while eliminating things that benefit a very few, and in ways that are not fiscally sound, would be one step in the right direction. More than anything it is a mindset that would start to transform the economy. Instead of spend, spend, spend, the mantra should be cut, cut, cut. The Supreme Court has spoken on this issue with the intent of protecting the Constitution, but I am sure they are open to trimming pork out of the budget as long as it is done legally. CELIC is the solution to this problem. Lobbyists, the media and politicians should be denied access to this group. It would not function in an official Constitutional capacity, any more so than the Internal Revenue Service or the Congressional Budget Committee, or the President’s Cabinet, but with the explicit agreement that the President, the Congress and the Courts will support its decisions.
Notes
The Congressional and Executive Line-Item Committee
U. S. Government
The founding fathers were afraid of any entity in the new government becoming too much like the monarchs they had fled from. For that reason there are limitations built into the United States Constitution that give each branch of government some control over the other branches. The United States system of government is based on a set of checks and balances that keep one branch or one person from becoming too powerful. It divides the powers of the federal government between the Congress, the President and the Federal Courts. One of the powers of the President is to exercise the veto over bills passed by Congress. This …show more content…
veto power is balanced by the fact that a greater majority of the Congress can override it. The “line-item veto” is the power of an executive to veto sections or items of a tax or appropriation measure, lines, while actually signing the rest of the measure into law.i This would be a valuable tool in eliminating unnecessary spending and bringing the budget and deficit under control. In spite of the fact that all but six states allow governors some form of the line-item veto, there are powerful debates for and against granting it to the President of the United States, and historical evidence to support each argument. The line-item veto would be a good tool in the hands of a president, as it would allow him or her to control unnecessary spending and unnecessary earmarks, or pork, but since that is an uphill battle without the support of the Supreme Court, other measures must take the place of the line-item veto. The line-item veto is not a new idea. All but six states (Indiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont) have some form of line-item veto. Even the Confederate States included this in their “Confederate States Constitution.”ii President Ronald Reagan in his State of the Union Address first proposed the idea of the line-item veto on a national level on January 25, 1984. Then in his State of the Union address in 1986 he said “Tonight I ask you to give me what forty-three governors have: Give me a line-item veto this year. Give me the authority to veto waste, and I’ll take the responsibility, I’ll make the cuts, I’ll take the heat.”iii Bill Clinton said a similar thing in his 1995 State of the Union address in 1995. President after president has asked for this power because they recognize the wisdom of it while recognizing the problem of wasteful spending. An appropriations bill is one that gives authority to “spend the money that belongs to the United States government…which spell out exactly how much money will be given to each of the large federal agencies.” iv There are thirteen appropriation bills a year which fun the whole federal government. Presidents Reagan and Clinton and others have recognized the positive aspects of being able to cut individual items from the appropriations bills. Like all presidents, Reagan faced only two frustrating options when huge appropriations bills came to his desk filled with earmarks that most of the time were pet projects for the legislators, often meant to gain favor with the electorate and get them reelected; he could sign the whole bill with the billions of dollars of special interest spending, or he could shut down government operations by vetoing the bill. There was no ground in the middle. A line-item veto, he believed, would let the President eliminate individual items from congressional appropriations, so that pork barrel, or special interest spending, would not be approved just by having hijacked an otherwise necessary spending bill. The closest the Executive branch came to actually finalizing this debate came during the presidency of Bill Clinton. President Clinton was actually given the power for a little while as a result of the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, which was passed by Congress. He used the power eighty-two times in eleven bills.v Unfortunately, a United States District Court Judge, Thomas F. Hogan ruled that, “unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution.vi Afterwards, the United States Supreme Court in Clinton v. City of New York, and a related case called Raines v. Byrd, upheld Hogan’s ruling.vii Rudolph Giuliani brought this case to the Supreme Court. On June 25, 1998 the United States Supreme Court agreed with Judge Hogan that the Line item Veto Act did violate the Presentment Clause, which requires that every bill which has passed the House and the Senate before becoming law must be presented to the President for approval or veto, but the Constitution doesn’t say anything about whether the President may “amend or repel provisions of bills that have passed the House and Senate in identical form.” viii The Court felt that the fact that the Constitution said nothing about this particular issue meant that was the same as a prohibition. Again during his administration George W. Bush asked Congress to pass legislation to again give this veto power to him. He also announced his intent to seek this in his State of the Union address in 2006. His idea might actually have worked. It really amounted to freezing a spending item and requesting that Congress rescind it. Congress would have to act quickly on a request like this. If a majority was willing to stand by an earmark it would stand, but they at least may not have been willing to stand by ridiculous pet projects like a bridge to nowhere in Alaska. At least this version would have helped to get rid of line items buried in large spending packages. Several Legislators, including John McCain, Russ Feingold, and Paul Ryan introduced a new version of the Line Item Veto Act in 2006, to allow the President to “single out wasteful spending and to put such spending on hold,” saying it would allow the President to take control of the situation. Rep. Ryan said, “While an important tool, a line-item veto cannot stop Washington’s unchecked spending spree and the glaring lack of a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.” ix Then as late as 2009 Senator Russ Feingold and Senator John McCain again introduced legislation that came close to a line-item veto. It would have given president power to take earmarks out of new bills by sending a bill back to the Legislature without an earmark, expecting that they would vote quickly by majority vote to make deadlines in the bill to get it passed. Supporters of the line item veto recognize that there is a need to control spending and to cut the deficit. They think the line-item veto would allow presidents to make the government more accountable for federal spending. Sometimes very powerful legislators attach “rider” amendments to important bills. A rider is an “informal term for a non-germane amendment to a bill or an amendment to an appropriation bill that changes the permanent law governing a program funded by the bill.”x The line-item veto could be used to prevent these. Without the power of this veto presidents feel as though they have to sign controversial riders into law even though they may not support them. The line-item veto would strengthen a president’s powers to rescind individual appropriations while allowing the rest of a good bill to pass. Congress would still have the power to override the line-item veto, leaving important checks and balances in place. Those who are afraid of an upset of the balance of power should remember that the power of the president is still limited. Over half of the federal spending is permanently authorized, so a president cannot veto these, and a president cannot veto appropriations from previous years, so only a small percentage of federal spending is involved, enough to make a difference, but not enough to throw things out of balance. The arguments in support of the line-item veto are strong and based in a real desire to make things right and just. Wasteful spending is an important issue and this is a powerful tool against it. No president should have to sign bills that go against his or her principles. Those opposed to granting the line item veto to presidents say that the line item veto would give presidents too much power over government spending in comparison to the power of the Congress. Some of them argue that it might even give the presidents legislative authority in changing law, which might violate the intent of the Constitution. The main argument against the veto, even by the Supreme Court, is the interpretation of the Presentment Clause in Article I, Section 7 of the United States Constitution:
Article I Section 7: “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the
President of the United States: If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his
Objections to that House in which it shall have originated. . . . .If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that
House, it shall become a Law.” xi
George Will took a stand against the veto proposed by President Bush, saying that “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.” Will doesn’t feel it would do anything to reduce spending anyway, and might even make the situation worse.xii Steve Chapman, a liberal writer for the Chicago Tribune, said, “a line-item veto by itself does nothing to curb fiscal indiscipline.”xiii The fact that so many states have had this power for a long time, and it has not made a big difference in the economic status of their economies is also a common argument against the effectiveness of the line-item veto. Several groups joined forces to oppose the line-item veto, including the University of Virginia Center for Politics and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Both Republican and Democratic leaders in the Congress have fought for bills proposing the line-item veto, but there are also strong opponents in both parties, and strong lobbying forces that oppose it and obviously the most influential and the final word on the subject is the Supreme Court. The constitutional argument is a difficult one to get past. This is the supreme law of our country and it should not be easy to change its intent. This may be an argument that is too impenetrable to overcome, and no matter how right the power of the line-item veto seems, the Supreme Court has done its job by interpreting and defending the Constitution. I think the solution to giving the line-item veto to the President is to give the power to a joint Congressional and Executive bipartisan committee of eight people.
The Congress could have approval over the four Executive appointees, and the President could have approval over the four Congressional appointees. It could be called the Congressional and Executive Line-Item Committee (CELIC). Every budget would have to be finally cleared through this committee and then returned to the Legislature for final approval with cuts, and then to the President’s desk for final approval with cuts. This would maintain the balance of power, provide continued checks and balances and a slimmer, less bloated budget. The members of the Committee should all have budget and economic experience to gain approval by the Congress and the President. This keeps a line-item veto on the table but out of the hands of any one division of the government. The Chairman of this committee could be The Chairman of the Federal Reserve or some other high-profile individual known for an in depth knowledge of financial matters. This would leave the power of both the President and the Congress in its present proportion and would insure that the President does not have too much power over government spending in relation to Congress. It also does not go against the Presentment Clause and might withstand challenges before the Supreme Court. Obviously the President would have some sway over those he appointed, but then again so would the Congress. In truth, the Committee would most likely function in an independent manner and in the best interest of the country, letting stand those expenditures that are fair and just, and eliminating the bridges to nowhere that have caused such outcries for reasonable expenditures. Finally, the bipartisan nature of the Committee should calm any concerns about ideological imbalance in the budgetary
process. The line-item veto, or something that accomplishes reasonable expenditures that benefit the people of the United States, while eliminating things that benefit a very few, and in ways that are not fiscally sound, would be one step in the right direction. More than anything it is a mindset that would start to transform the economy. Instead of spend, spend, spend, the mantra should be cut, cut, cut. The Supreme Court has spoken on this issue with the intent of protecting the Constitution, but I am sure they are open to trimming pork out of the budget as long as it is done legally. CELIC is the solution to this problem. Lobbyists, the media and politicians should be denied access to this group. It would not function in an official Constitutional capacity, any more so than the Internal Revenue Service or the Congressional Budget Committee, or the President’s Cabinet, but with the explicit agreement that the President, the Congress and the Courts will support its decisions.
Notes