Wednesday, March 08, 2006
The line-item veto
The request was at least superficially strange. President Bush, after all, has appeared for all the world as though he does not know what the word "veto" means, or even that the Constitution grants the President that power. No one can avoid noticing that Bush does not otherwise seem to have a hard time locating executive powers within the Constitution.
The Globe reminds us that a Republican Congress passed a line-item veto during the Clinton administration, but the Supreme Court struck it down as an unconstitutional delegation of power from the legislative branch to the executive. That version required a two-thirds majority of each house to override, just like a regular veto. The supporters of the current proposal hope to distinguish it on the grounds that it simply requires a majority-vote confirmation by the Congress that it intended to pass the particular items "vetoed" -- actually, "flagged" would be a better term -- by the President.
The purpose of this line-item veto is to shine a light on "earmarks," which are the particularly egregious rifle-shot appropriations that legislators drop on favored constituents by attaching them as amendments to some broadly popular bill. Every time you hear about some egregious piece of federal funding -- a "bridge to nowhere," for example -- it probably derived from an earmark. If the President could single these out for a specific confirming vote by the Congress, members might be embarrassed enough to vote against them.
Of course, none of this would be necessary if the members of the House of Representatives, virtually all of whom have safe seats, had a shred of self discipline. Congressional supporters of the proposal are, essentially, asking that the President stop them before they kill again.
The veto is really all about the allocation of bargaining power between the President and the Congress. The line-item veto appears to shift that power in the direction of the President by limiting the infinite flexibility of the Congress to force the government to spend more money that it has asked for, needs, or even wants. Congress is usually reluctant to surrender its prerogatives. Sometimes, though, Congress acts, or fails to act, against its own institutional interest. Constitutional scholars have wondered, for example, why Congress did not decide a long time ago simply to override any presidential veto cast. While that would have meant that some representatives would vote for legislation in the override that they opposed in the intial passage, it would have been a huge boost to Congressional institutional power. It is probably good for the country that the Congress never acted on that idea.
It is not however clear that the proposed line-item will work as intended. The President (Bush or any other) is not going to "veto" or send back for "confirmation" earmarks that benefit key constituencies in key states. Think steel tariffs.
Some Congressmen will argue that this will magnify the influence of representatives from "battleground" states, who already have disproportionate power. That fact alone may mean that this proposal will not pass. The counterargument, though, is that Congress can now point a finger at the President for any silly thing that does pass, on the grounds that he could have sent it back for "confirmation." Perversely, it is possible that this proposal will legitimize wasteful spending by creating a mechanism under which the White House can be held responsible. We might very well see a huge new rush of earmarks, just to see what might get by an embattled President with sinking poll numbers.
Comments?
11 Comments:
By 
Gordon Smith, at
Wed Mar 08, 08:50:00 AM:
A line-item veto always seems like a good idea when your party is in power and a terrible idea when the other party is in power. President Bush's FY 2007 budget zeroes out many important programs while rigidly maintaining the stance that the wealthiest Americans need not worry their wealthy little heads about those distasteful poor people.
link: "federal education spending would be trimmed from $55.9 billion in FY 2006 to $54.4 billion in FY 2007. Forty-two different programs within the U.S. Department of Education—including the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Program ($34.65 million), the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities grants program ($346.5 million), Mental Health Integration in Schools Grant ($4.9 million), GEAR-UP ($303.4 million), and Perkins career and technical education state grants program ($1.182 billion)—would be eliminated outright."
link: "Section 202 housing for the low-income elderly -- funding in 2007 would be cut 26 percent below the 2006 level, even before adjustment for inflation.
Section 811 housing for low-income people with disabilities -- cut 50 percent in 2007.
Community Development Block Grant formula grant program -- cut 30 percent in 2007.
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), which promotes community policing primarily by putting police on the streets -- cut 79 percent in 2007.
Cuts in child care: The President's budget also calls for cuts in discretionary child care funding for children from low- and moderate-income families, with the cuts totaling $1 billion over the next five years as compared to the fiscal year 2006 funding levels adjusted for inflation. Data from the President's budget show that at the proposed funding levels, the number of children receiving child care assistance in 2011 would drop by more than 400,000 as compared to the number who received assistance in 2005."
These are the kinds of budget items that, after the President zeroes them out, Congress generally revive. However, under a line-item veto, they would be knifed.
If this administration had shown any efficacy in representing the most vulnerable and needy Americans, then maybe I could stomach the line-item veto power. If this administration had any willingness to be straightforward about its economic agenda, then maybe I could get behind the line-item with the knowledge that a Democrat would one day wield the same power.
That's a very long way of saying that the line-item veto power could be a useful tool for an executive branch that was working in good faith with the legislative branch. Because of the likelihood that Bush will abuse this power, however, there's no way he ought to have his power expanded any further.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Mar 08, 02:51:00 PM:
A line item veto is a great idea, especially this one, which isn't really a veto anyway. Opposing it because you don't like President Bush is remarkably short-sighted and the other arguments against it tend to be speculatory "what ifs" that really kind of reach. This power would help reign in one of the most irresponsible and spendthrift instutions in the world: the US Congress.
By Cardinalpark, at
Wed Mar 08, 03:30:00 PM:
Oh my. Screwy and I may agree. Sort of.
I am not, at them moment, a terribly eager cutter of fiscal spending at the moment. Not because it isn't a good long term idea, but because I think it would be very tough medicine for the economy at the moment.
If you think about it, the economy recovered post bubble crash and post 9/11 due to massive fiscal and monetary stimulus.
Over the last 12 months, much of that monetary stimulus has been removed via interest rate increases from the Fed, and the futures market seems to be discounting at least 2 and perhaps 3 more 25bp increases.
The result of this bit of monetary cotnraction has been a cooling of the real estate market (about which much has been written) and a flattening of the yield curve to near inversion.
My great concern would be that if we serially introduced significant fiscal contraction -- whether thru tax increases or spending reductions of size -- we could really tip things over economically...and this would be good for nobody, but especially working people.
Now I think earmarks -- bridges to nowhere in Alaska -- are excellent targets for removal. Sill farm and sugar subsidies too. Stuff like that. But I would be very careful about govt spending cuts that would reduce employment in particular.
Gotta be gentle on these things...
By Cassandra, at
Wed Mar 08, 06:24:00 PM:
Because of the likelihood that Bush will abuse this power, however, there's no way he ought to have his power expanded any further.
Oh nonsense Screwy.
This, in reference to a sitting President who has NEVER ONCE used the veto power in FIVE YEARS in office. But you say he is going to ABUSE his veto power? Come on.
You know as well as everyone else does that Congress ABUSES its power by attaching riders to bills that have *nothing* to do with the matter under consideration, knowing *full well* that the only thing that keeps them from getting deservedly axed is the inability to sever them from the overall measure under consideration.
This is not "good faith" dealing, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with severing this kind of crap from the bill and sending it back to Congress for separate consideration.
In a representative democracy (you DO remember that word?), the test of whether a bill passes is not whether you can sneak it under the radar by some goofy trick.
It is whether the representatives of ENOUGH VOTERS support the measure. If they don't, it deserves to die.
Can you explain to me exactly what is wrong with this idea, Screwy?
By Cassandra, at
Wed Mar 08, 06:27:00 PM:
And in case it wasn't clear, I agree with Dawnfire wholeheartedly, whether a Republican or a Democrat President is in office.
If a provision of a bill has enough bipartisan support, Congress will rise and override the veto. If not, let it die.
Period.
By Cassandra, at
Wed Mar 08, 06:34:00 PM:
And furthermore, just to head my friend Screwy off, I supported the line item veto when Clinton was in office and there was a Rethug majority in Congress. And yes, I feel strongly about this.
One thing about me. I really, really disliked Clinton - I thought he was a tool. But I believe in three co-equal branches of govt. with their respective powers preserved intact.
You don't monkey with the rules according to whether you, subjectively, happen to "like" or "dislike" the sitting Pres., SCOTUS, or Congress. Deal with it.
The system and its actors are always going to be imperfect but somehow the Republic survives even this, as it has since the time of the Romans (or the Phoenicians if you are that eponymous commenter I saw a while back).
Step back and view life through the lens of history. We are ants on a monster truck tire - our view of things is necessarily somewhat impaired by our position in the scheme of things.
By Gordon Smith, at
Thu Mar 09, 08:17:00 AM:
"You don't monkey with the rules according to whether you, subjectively, happen to "like" or "dislike" the sitting Pres., SCOTUS, or Congress. Deal with it."
Republicans have been monkeying with the rules since they ascended to the majority, and the "rule" you're talking about doesn't exist. There is no line-item veto, so we'd have to change the rules to make it so.
That's some bizarre contortionism you just did, Cassandra. It's not like you.
The elements of the budget zeroed out by the Bush adminstration's FY '07 budget ought to alarm you. If he had the line-item and continued to have the water-carrying Congress he had for the first 4 and 1/2 years of his presidency, then no social program would be safe.
Bush abuses power. DeLay abuses power. Frist abuses power. Hastert, Cunningham, Ney, Rove, Rice, Wolfowitz, Cheney, etc. They all seek to expand the power of the executive at every turn, and a compliant Congress has let them.
Line-item veto is a great idea until you realize that it's power grabbing megalomaniacs who may get to wield it and that it's power-hungry sycophants who may be in charge of Congress.
I don't like the Bridge to Nowhere either, but neither do I like the idea that Bush (in concert with his congressional water-carriers) could eliminate so much funding for education, child care, health care with a stroke of his pen.
This President is a menace. Ask me again when there's someone respectable in office, but I can't imagine codifying a line-item veto when we never know what sort of nonsense the President will get up to.
Wow...Daddy's been ranting.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu Mar 09, 11:48:00 AM:
Screwy - Did you see the movie Stripes?
Lighten up Francis.
The reason you think Bush abuses power is because you don't agree much with him. Sometimes the problem rests with you, not the "target."
I didn't much like Clinton and I thought he abused his power regularly, as governor, as President, as male with loose zipper. You name it. I didn't much agree with him -- whether it was welcoming Arafat to the White House or picking sides in the Yugoslav civil war.
Abuse of power ultimately gets settled not by blogs and bloviators but by judges and the law. This president hasn't been called before a grand jury and lied to them, as the last one did. And my guess is he won't be.
But he will drive you to distraction, won't he? You have all the way til January 2009 to live with it Screwy.
Enjoy.
By Cassandra, at
Thu Mar 09, 12:09:00 PM:
Yes, it is funny how that works, isn't it?
The only difference between Screwy and myself being that I acknowledge that although I neither liked nor agreed with Herr Clinton, he was elected by the people and as long as he was in office, so long as he didn't do anything completely bizarre I wasn't going to raise the roof over it :)
Clinton had his excesses too:
**************************
President Clinton is literally writing his legacy with his own pen by signing one controversial executive order after another.
Making good on a vow to pick up where Congress leaves off, Mr. Clinton has posted 301 formal executive orders and generated a storm from opponents who say the orders push the limits of presidential power.
The president has used that extraordinary power to revamp civil service rules for workers with psychiatric disabilities, ban discrimination against homosexuals in civilian federal jobs, halt dealings with federal contractors who use products made by foreign child labor, declassify vast stacks of old files, change contracting practices to give Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders a bidding edge, revise food labeling, restrict smoking in government offices, revamp encryption export rules and intervene in a Philadelphia transit strike.
"Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kind of cool," says former Clinton adviser Paul Begala, dismissing objections of critics who despise the process as unconstitutional lawmaking, no matter which president uses it.
"With a stroke of the pen, he may have done irreparable harm to individual rights and liberties," says House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Texas Republican, who accepts two premises many resist - that such orders do not require congressional approval, and that they have the force of law.
"President Clinton seems bent on using his powers until someone says stop," Mr. Armey said. "President Clinton is running roughshod over our Constitution."
To confuse matters, the process of issuing executive orders is spelled out by executive order. The absence of clear boundaries infuriates those who seek to rein in presidents from governing by fiat.
****************
DANGEROUS! UNPRECEDENTED! ABUSE OF POWER!!!!
AN OUT OF CONTROL EXECUTIVE BRANCH!!!
And then that was that little matter of wanting to use warrantless searches on residents of public housing...
Not in wartime.
American citizens.
No national security threat.
Hmmm...
Heh...
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Mar 09, 01:00:00 PM:
I love you, Cassandra. <3
*call me*
By Gordon Smith, at
Thu Mar 09, 06:41:00 PM:
Cassandra,
You've thoroughly talked me into it.
No President should have this power.
The idea that you don't see that there's some difference between Clinton and Bush's use of Presidential power is disturbing though. I thought you liked all that bold leadership and such...
