NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/talk/politics/misc/60473

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-17 | 2.9 KB

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From: [e-mail] ( Roger Wakefield)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.clinton,alt.president.clinton
Subject: Line Item Veto (was Re: Clinton and Dole v. Foley and Mitchell)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 16 Nov 92 23:07:06 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (UseNet News account)
Reply-To: [e-mail] ( Roger Wakefield)
Organization: National Semiconductor
Lines: 42

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(David W. Levine) writes:

> From what I can tell, there is interest in some sort of line item veto,
> the current question is what form it will take. A simple line item
> excision that requires a majority vote to override has been bandied
> about as a compromise. This strikes me as reasonable enough. It lets
> the president (And since this is a precedent setting thing, one may as
> well assume either of the same or a different party than controls congress)
> to point at individual items and ask "Do we need this" and force a majority
> of congress to agree it's needed, on the record, on that specific item.
>
> One thing I would like to see is that excision require a role call vote,
> on a per item basis to override. I could easily imagine the logrolling that
> an "omnibuss measure to override the excision of various items" would
generate.
>
> The current process does tend towards obfuscating responsibility for
porkbarrel
> legislation. Making it clear that a specific item was "owned" by a specific
> collection of represenatives and senators would help clear this up.

The goal of a line-item veto should be to allow the President to kill
pork-barrel attachments to bills without actually gaining the power to
make law.  Therefore, there must be some method of returning the bill to
Congress after the line-item veto. The best idea I've heard seems to be:
after the President strikes the offending portions of a bill, it returns
to the both houses, which can: 1.) by simple majority, pass the new bill
with the struck items ommitted, or 2.) by 2/3 majority, pass the
original bill (same as the old veto override), or 3.) kill the bill altogether.
No further amending would be allowed.

You cannot let the President line-item veto a bill into law.  To permit
this would be a wholescale change in the intent of the Constitution.
Further, if George Bush could have done this, he would have passed a
bunch of the Congressional bills that contained tax increases to pay for
the costs of the bills, increasing both spending and the debt simultaneously.

--
Roger Wakefield
National Semiconductor, South Portland, ME
[e-mail]